Every candidate has their own thorn. A guide to avoiding getting pricked

Every rose has its thorn. And every candidate has their own problems to sort out. Of course, the perfect candidate does not exist; there is only the candidate who can be improved, so to speak. What will the campaign for the next mayor be like? Taking the political analyst’s magnifying glass and applying it to the details – not even the tiniest ones – the flaws of every hopeful come to light. From right to left, first and foremost is Matteo Perego from Cremnago. Apart from his double surname – which the centre-left maliciously brings up every time they refer to him – there is the fact that he is still relatively unknown. And that he will have to be a regular fixture on television for months to come before reaching the desired level of recognition, not only in Zone 1 but throughout the rest of the city as well. Then there is Maurizio Lupi, whose weakness is his party: it is no coincidence that they blame his party’s low poll ratings to pompously explain that, no, he simply cannot make it. Finally, still on the right, there is Silvia Sardone: the opposite of Matteo Perego applies to her. Extremely well-known, an idol of the security-conscious suburbs, she has an unexpected following even amongst non-left-wing feminists (there are quite a few of them, but they remain silent). In the city centre, however – her Achilles’ heel – she has to work hard to win over voters, and that is complicated. Carmelo Burgio, the Vannacci-backed candidate, faces a different problem: to be mayor, one must talk not only about security but also about growth, green spaces, transport – in short, all those things we haven’t even heard mentioned in jest so far. In any case, on the right so far, everything is fairly much as expected, with no particularly strong candidates.

In the centre-left, however, the thorns are becoming sharper. Pierfrancesco Majorino has to resolve the pro-Pal issue. Of course, he believes in his balanced stance: but will the tone adopted by Paolo Romano – who is at the heart of his campaign – be tolerated by that electorate, which is anything but extreme, that he must win over by taking it away from Calabresi? On the stadium front, the process for the new ground began many years ago. Can a leading figure in the Milanese PD really claim to be detached from the decisions taken, and disavow them entirely as if he were in opposition? This problem does not, however, affect Anna Scavuzzo, who defends the project and has earned the praise of Mayor Beppe Sala, with whom she had also had a falling out a few months ago. Scavuzzo’s problem is her standing: there is no sign of the party structures to which she belongs rallying behind her. And as we know, primaries are a game of cliques. Then there is Emmanuel Conte: his flaw is that he carries on working like a madman, but as far as the election campaign is concerned, we’re at square one. It’s a pity that, in the run-up to the elections, one needs to get the message across and, in the time remaining, get on with the work. (Anyone who claims otherwise is a hypocrite; that’s how campaigns are won.) Staying with the PD: Lorenzo Pacini. The other side of the Young Democrats. Two-thirds back Paolo Romano, one-third back him. In fact, Romano and Pacini say the same things. And they appear on the same programmes (in particular, Rete 4: Mediaset hosts them frequently and willingly). Pacini has verve; he’s self-deprecating, and even when he makes bold claims, that little smile of his makes them seem a bit lighter. The thorn in Pacini’s side is the decision – which could come shortly from the national PD – to field a single candidate endorsed by the party. Just as with Elly Schlein. If it were to be Majorino, both Pacini and Scavuzzo would have to make difficult decisions: run as independents? Or not run at all? Then there’s Carlotta Cossutta, a former researcher at the University of Milan. Her thorn in the side? She’s hard to distinguish from Pacini and, to some extent, from Majorino (there are simply too many on the far left). Finally, Tommaso Goisis, who gave everyone a bit of a scare with the thousand attendees at his candidacy launch. His thorn in the side is Maran’s famous quip about reformists: how many are there really? Enough to fill the Elfo Puccini theatre, and that’s it? As for Mario Calabresi, his thorn in the side is, in truth, a minefield requiring a tightrope walk. He’s getting his first taste of this at the Meazza, and Beppe Sala has already taken a dig at him: he thinks like Ignazio La Russa. But it doesn’t end there, not by a long shot. Every time he has to take a clear stance on an issue, he’ll be caught between the staunch reformists – who don’t want to hear a word against how Milan has evolved over the last ten years – and the need not to appear like a clone of Beppe Sala (which, incidentally, he isn’t). Another hurdle is the need to mobilize more party members in his favor, following the endorsement by Franco Mirabelli, the leader of Area Dem. There are plenty of thorns; no candidate can expect to avoid feeling their prick.