Milan municipal election, 2016

Center-left primary election

On 22 March 2015, the incumbent mayor Giuliano Pisapia announced that he had chosen not to run for re-election in 2016 for a second term in office. Following Pisapia's decision, the ruling center-left coalition decided to call an open primary election to choose a new single mayoral candidate.

Four people registered to be candidates in this election: Giuseppe Sala, business executive and Milan Expo 2015 CEO; Francesca Balzani, current deputy mayor, responsible for Budget in the Milan's municipal government and former MEP; Pierfrancesco Majorino, current responsible for Social Equalities in the municipal government of the city; Antonio Iannetta, former president of UISP (Italian Sport Union for Everyone).

The election took place on 6–7 February 2016:

Total voters: 60,900

Center-righ candidacy

On 10 February 2016, Stefano Parisi, former City manager of Milan (1997-2001), announced his acceptance to become the center-right coalition candidate for the mayoral election, a role proposed to him by the former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Parisi is also the former CEO of the telecommunication company Fasteweb; Parisi in last 2015 was the manager of Corrado Passera's early majoral campaign for their party, Italia Unica: Passera retired to run for Major when Parisi resigned after a meeting with Berlusconi.

Others

On 8 November 2015, the anti-establishment Five Star Movement choose its own candidate with a closed primary election. The 52 yo unemployed activist Patrizia Bedori was chosen as official mayoral candidate. On that date no official data were provided by the movement. However, on 12 March 2016 Bedori stepped down from the candidacy, saying tearful during an assembly that she wasn't the right person to represent the movement. Afterwards on 24 March 2016 with a closed virtual primary on the web, the Five Star Movement choose its new candidate, Gianluca Corrado, who received 632 votes out of 876.

Voting system

The voting system is used for all mayoral elections in Italy of cities with a population higher than 15,000. Under this system voters express a direct choice for the mayor or an indirect choice voting for the party of the candidate's coalition. If no candidate receives at least 50% of votes, the top two candidates go to a second round after two weeks. This gives a result whereby the winning candidate may be able to claim majority support, although it is not guaranteed.

For the zones the voting system is the same, not referred to the mayor but to the president of the zones.

The election of the City Council is based on a direct choice for the candidate with a preference vote: the candidate with the majority of the preferences is elected. The number of the seats for each party is determined proportionally.

Parties and candidates

This is a list of the parties (and their respective leaders) which will participate in the election.

Results

Note: if a defeated candidate for Mayor obtained over 3% of votes, he/she is automatically elected city councilor.

The candidate elected Major is not a member of the City Council, but has the right to vote in the City Council; if Stefano Parisi will resign, his seat in the City Council will pass to Riccardo De Corato (former Deputy Major, 1997-2011), first candidate of Brothers of Italy (FdI), because this list is the first list in the coalition under the electoral threshold.

Zone results

After the 2011 election, all nine zone were governed by the center-left. Following the 2016 election, five were gained by the center-right coalition and four by the center-left.

Table below show the results for each zones with the percentage for each coalition:

Source: Municipality of Milan - Electoral Service