Municipal elections were held in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

on 5 and 19 June 2016 to elect the

Mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well a ...

and the 48 members of the

City Council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural counc ...

, as well as the nine presidents and 270 councillors of the nine administrative zones in which the municipality is divided, each one having one president and 30 councillors. Incumbent Mayor

Giuliano Pisapia Giuliano Pisapia (; born 20 May 1949) is an Italian lawyer, politician, former mayor of Milan, former member of the Italian Parliament and member of the European Parliament. As a politician, he has been a member of two left-wing parties, first P ...

choose not to run for re-election for a second term in office. As no candidate won a majority in the first round, a

runoff Runoff, run-off or RUNOFF may refer to: * RUNOFF, the first computer text-formatting program * Runoff or run-off, another name for bleed, printing that lies beyond the edges to which a printed sheet is trimmed * Runoff or run-off, a stock market ...

was held between the top two candidates –

Giuseppe Sala Giuseppe "Beppe" Sala (born 28 May 1958) is an Italian manager and politician, currently mayor of Milan. He was CEO of Expo 2015 in Milan from 2010 to 2015. He became mayor of Milan in 2016, supported by the centre-left coalition, and he was con ...

, an independent business executive and Milan Expo 2015 CEO, close to the

Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

(PD), and

Stefano Parisi Stefano Parisi (Rome, 12 November 1956) is an Italian businessman and politician, General Secretary of Confindustria for 4 years and founder of Energies for Italy, a political party member of the centre-right coalition. Biography Origins and pers ...

, former CEO of the telecommunication company Fastweb close to

Silvio Berlusconi Silvio Berlusconi ( ; ; born 29 September 1936) is an Italian media tycoon and politician who served as Prime Minister of Italy in four governments from 1994 to 1995, 2001 to 2006 and 2008 to 2011. He was a member of the Chamber of Deputies ...

Forza Italia Forza ItaliaThe name is not usually translated into English: ''forza'' is the second-person singular imperative of ''forzare'', in this case translating to "to compel" or "to press", and so means something like "Forward, Italy", "Come on, Ital ...

(FI) – which Sala won by a narrow margin. The new Mayor was also appointed by law as general Mayor of the former

Province of Milan The Province of Milan ( it, Provincia di Milano) was a province in the Lombardy region, Italy. Its capital was the city of Milan. The area of the former province is highly urbanized, with more than 2,000 inhabitants/km2, the third highest populati ...

now called

Metropolitan City of Milan The Metropolitan City of Milan ( it, città metropolitana di Milano; lmo, label=Milanese, cittaa metropolitana de Milan ) is a metropolitan city (not to be confused with the metropolitan area) in the Lombardy region, Italy. It is the second mos ...

Background

Centre-left primary election

On 22 March 2015, the incumbent Mayor

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 centre-left coalition decided to call an open primary election to choose a new mayoral candidate. Four people registered to be candidates in this election:

, business executive and Milan Expo 2015 CEO; Francesca Balzani, deputy mayor, responsible for Budget in the

's municipal government and former MEP; Pierfrancesco Majorino, 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

Centre-right candidacy

On 10 February 2016,

, former

City manager A city manager is an official appointed as the administrative manager of a city, in a "Mayor–council government" council–manager form of city government. Local officials serving in this position are sometimes referred to as the chief execu ...

of Milan (1997-2001), announced his acceptance to become the centre-right coalition candidate for the mayoral election, a role proposed to him by the former Prime Minister

. Parisi is also the former CEO of the telecommunication company Fastweb; Parisi in last 2015 was the manager of

Corrado Passera Corrado Passera (born 30 December 1954 in Como, Italy) is an Italian manager and banker who has held numerous executive-level positions in various industrial and financial sectors and served as minister of economic development and infrastruct ...

's early mayoral campaign for their party,

Unique Italy Unique Italy (''Italia Unica'', IU; ''unico/a'' translates both to "unique" and "united") was a centre-right political party in Italy. Its leader was Corrado Passera, a former manager (Mondadori, Espresso, Olivetti, Poste), banker ( Intesa/Intes ...

: 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 The Five Star Movement ( it, Movimento 5 Stelle , M5S) is a political party in Italy. Its leader and president is Giuseppe Conte, Prime Minister of Italy from 2018 until 2021. The M5S was founded on 4 October 2009 by Beppe Grillo, a comedian an ...

choose its own candidate with a closed primary election. The 52-year-old 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

choose its new candidate, Gianluca Corrado, who received 632 votes out of 876.

Voting system

The semipresidential voting system is used for all mayoral elections in Italy of cities with a population higher than 15,000 for the sixth time. 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. 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 losing party is determined proportionally.

Parties and candidates

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

Opinion polling

Results

Note: if a defeated candidate for Mayor obtained over 3% of votes, the mayoral candidate 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

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 Brothers of Italy ( it, Fratelli d'Italia, FdI) is a national-conservative and right-wing populist political party in Italy. It is led by Giorgia Meloni, the incumbent Prime Minister of Italy and the first woman to serve in the position. Accor ...

(FdI), because this list is the first list in the coalition under the

electoral threshold The electoral threshold, or election threshold, is the minimum share of the primary vote that a candidate or political party requires to achieve before they become entitled to representation or additional seats in a legislature. This limit can ...

Results by ''municipio''

Presidents and Councils

After the 2011 election, all nine ''municipi'' were governed by the centre-left. Following the 2016 election, five were gained by the centre-right coalition and four by the centre-left. Table below shows the results for each ''municipio'' with the percentage for each candidate and president elected: Source
Municipality of Milan - Electoral Service
/small> Table below shows the seats for each coalition in every Municipal Council: Source

/small>

Mayoral votes

Second round

Table below shows the results of the votes for mayoral candidates on the second round (19 June 2016) in each ''municipio'':

References

{{Elections in Milan 2016 elections in Italy

Elections in Milan 2010s in Milan June 2016 events in Italy