Municipal elections 14-15 May, where to vote: the map on page 12

ROME. There are no big cities, but there are still more than 6 million Italians called to vote between now and the end of the month to elect their own mayor. Most between tomorrow and Monday, when polling stations will open in 596 municipalities, the rest to follow (May 21 and May 28-29), when polls will also be cast in Trentino and Valle d’Aosta and then in Sicily and Sardinia . This first round involves 91 municipalities with over 15,000 inhabitants, including 13 provincial capitals: Brescia, Sondrio, Vicenza, Treviso, Massa, Imperia, Pisa, Siena, Terni, Latina, Brindisi, Teramo and Ancona (which is also the capital of region).

In these cities, 7 outgoing mayors are from the centre-right and 5 from the centre-left, while in Latina there is a prefectural commissioner after the fall of the centre-left administration led by Damiano Colletta last year. The latter reapplied, supported by a coalition with Pd and M5s together, as is also the case in Pisa, Teramo, Brindisi, as well as in Catania and Syracuse. Elsewhere Elly Schlein and Giuseppe Conte run separately, reserving possible convergences in the ballots, on the model of Udine, where a month ago an agreement after the first round led to victory. For the secretary of the Democratic Party, this is the first real electoral test after taking office in the Nazarene, given that she had been in office for a few days at the regional ones in Friuli-Venezia Giulia. The goal is to keep where the dem have administered in recent years, especially in Brescia and Ancona, and try to reconquer Massa, Siena and Pisa, former Tuscan strongholds taken 5 years ago by the right.

On the right there is, as usual, more compactness, however flawed in a couple of cases: in Massa, where the Brothers of Italy put forward one of its candidates, different from that of Lega and Forza Italia, and in Trapani, where the Lega does not has presented its own list in support of the FdI and FI candidate and some local representatives have, however, created a civic list linked to the centre-left. For Giorgia Meloni there are three most significant challenges for a color change. In Brescia, where the leaders of the centre-right ended their electoral campaign yesterday and the mayor has been of the centre-left for 10 years. As in Ancona, historically registered Pd, but in a region now governed by the Brothers of Italy. Finally, in Catania, where the candidate belongs to the prime minister’s party and the former president of Sicily, now minister for the South, Nello Musumeci, has his weight. The most curious game, however, is that of Imperia, because the outgoing mayor, the former minister Claudio Scajola, has to deal with the deputy commissioner of police Ivan Bracco, candidate of the centre-left, who since 2010 has investigated him in six different investigations: all archived except one, the one in which Scajola is accused of having favored the disappearance of the former FI deputy Amedeo Matacena (in the first instance he was sentenced to 2 years).