Sunday 3 and Monday 4 October the four largest cities in the country to vote – Rome, Milan, Naples And Turin – and the smallest town, Morterone, 31 inhabitants, in the province of Lecco. Overall, there are more than 12 million Italians called to municipal elections to choose the mayor and city councilors.

Open ballot boxes in 1,192 municipalities
(1,154 in the regions with ordinary statute and 38 in Friuli-Venezia Giulia), including 19 capitals. The polling stations will remain open Sunday from 7 to 23 and moons from 7 to 15.

To win in the first round, in cities over 15 thousand citizens, a candidate must obtain 50% plus one of the valid votes, otherwise the mayor will be chosen in the second round, in the ballot between the two most voted, 17 and October 18.

Together with the municipal, the 3 and 4 will also vote for regional in Calabria and for two seats in the Chamber, in the colleges of Siena And Rome-Primavalle.

a particularly important election: the four most populous cities and another large municipality such as Bologna. the eyes are focused on this five, as well as on the regional ones in Calabria and on the supplementary ones in Siena, where the secretary of the Pd Enrico Letta runs.

A Rome I’m running the outgoing mayor, Virginia Raggi (M5S), the lawyer and well-known voice of local radio Enrico Michetti (center-right), the former minister Roberto Gualtieri (center left), the leader of Action Carlo Calenda and 18 other candidates.

To challenge the outgoing mayor of Milan Beppe Sala I’m the pediatrician Luca Bernardo (center right), the manager Layla Pavone (M5S) and 10 other candidates.

A Naples Pd and 5 Stars focus on the former minister Gaetano Manfredi, who will contend with the magistrate Catello Maresca (center-right), the former councilor of the council de Magistris Alessandra Clemente, the former mayor Antonio Bassolino and three other aspiring mayors.

A Turin dem and the Movement must be divided, with the former councilors Stefano Lo Russoe Valentina Sganga, while the center-right supports the wine and mineral water entrepreneur Paolo Damilano (another 10 candidates).

A Bologna
Matteo Lepore, former councilor of the center-left Merola junta, candidate with the support of the 5 Stars against the entrepreneur Fabio Battistini (center-right) and six others.

Then there is the Calabria, called to vote after the death of the governor Jole Santelli. Here they aspire to the presidency (single round, whoever arrives first wins) Roberto Occhiuto (center right), Amalia Bruni, supported by Pd and 5 Stelle, the former mayor of Naples Luigi de Magistris And Mario Oliverio, former governor of Calabria (2014-2020).

A Siena, for the seat in the Chamber left by Pier Carlo Padoan
, the secretary of the Democratic Party is at stake Enrico Letta, supported by a large center-left coalition, against the wine entrepreneur Tommaso Marrocchesi Marzi (center-right) and 4 other candidates, including Marco Rizzo with the Communist Party.

The local vote is located and mayors, councilors as well as representatives of the neighborhoods, true. But the test of the polls, where the parties to vote, opens up a debate that goes beyond the boundaries of the Municipality, in a national key: who won, who lost, how do the balances change?

Here then four political points of the local vote.

Starting with the challenge between center-right and center-left, with the variable 5 Stars. Lega, Fratelli d’Italia and Forza Italia are compact everywhere, far more than their opponents: between the Democratic Party and the 5 Star Movement, the agreement has struggled to take off, was signed in 30% of the municipalities to vote.

On the left, then, there is more competition: there is a galaxy of mayoral candidates who can gnaw votes from the big names. And the polls, at the national level, have long indicated the center-right has a clear advantage.

Yet in the main cities, with the exception of Turin, the center left starting favorite
(come to Milan, Naples, Bologna, while Rome is more in the balance). Part of this paradox was discharged on the choice of candidates, perhaps less known and found late.

Then there is another factor: internal competition within the center-right. For others, the center-right will be those who take one more vote, the leitmotiv that is heard repeated by the parties of the Lega, Fratelli d’Italia and Forza Italia, so these administrative offices can be seen as an important test in view of the 2023 political elections. Brothers of Italy
has been riding for some time in the polls, where one step away from the League, and now
the Carroccio aims to succeed: in some cities, like Rome, it seems obvious, in others, further north, think Milan and Turin, it would be a more thunderous blow.

The leader of the League, on the contrary, will have to measure the territorial roots of his party, after the national turning point, in the South. head of the coalition. AND there is also Forza Italia, now detached from the two allies, but growing (the party that has earned the most in the polls since the end of July), which aims to capitalize on the loyalist line in the Draghi government in the polls, seeking the vote of moderates and liberals.

Giuseppe Conte got his hands on: The M5S has always had difficulties in administrative offices, it has had historically very modest results. Which may be true for October 4th the Movement risks losing the leadership of the two cities that symbolize the golden age (electoral) of the 5 Stars: Rome and Turin

. And if it is true, as the former premier says, that the result is unrelated to the new grillino course because he was not yet the leader at the launch of the campaign, a departure marked by percentages below 10%
certainly not a good start for Conte
. The alliance with the Democratic Party did not take off: it was too difficult, in cities like Rome and Turin, after years of strenuous opposition, to recompose the front. But
the risk, in this electoral round, of the flu
: what the contribution to the Giallorossi axis was not decisive. Or worse, than being decisive only where, as in Turin, heavy votes can be taken away from the center-left.

Also for the Democratic Party it will be significant to see how the Giallorossi axis works in the electoral test. In the party there are those who consider that with the M5S a tactical alliance, an occasional story to be soon forgotten. For the secretary of the Democratic Party Enrico Letta, on the other hand, the Democratic Party must aim for maximum convergences, also towards the Movement led by Conte. But the secretary also plays another game, in the first person: he runs for a seat in the Chamber of Deputies, in the supplementary rounds of Siena, in the college where Pier Carlo Padoan, who has resigned, was elected. For the former minister then 36.2%, a figure that Letta will now have to deal with.