Milan mayoral race: the centre-left primaries are on the horizon. Mario Calabresi is gearing up
He will be one of the leading candidates in next spring’s local elections
Key points
His name has been circulating for a year as a possible centre-left candidate for mayor of Milan. Now, however, he himself has come come out into the open with a remark made at a small ‘Festa dell’Unità’ event on the outskirts of Milan, in Vizzolo Predabissi. A completely unexpected move: Mario Calabresi chose a small audience to say that he would like to ‘do something for Milan’. He is open to the idea, whilst ‘waiting’ to assess developments and any potential calls from that colourful world that is currently the centre-left in Milan (and beyond).
Uncertainties surrounding the primaries
First, however, we need to answer a few questions. Will there or won’t there be primaries? And above all: how many candidates will there be?
As for the first question, the answer now seems to be ‘yes’. As for the second, it’s still a ‘I don’t know’: at the moment there are more than seven candidates, but the number could rise. Calabresi, however, is already considered a strong contender. The course of events will also be influenced by the general election, the campaign for which will overlap with that of the local elections next spring. In Milan, the centre-left primaries are likely to take place in January, following the appointment of the selection committee that will narrow down the field of candidates.
Calabresi was well-regarded by the Milanese middle classes
Mario Calabresi has a name and a reputation that are not linked to politics, which make him a favourite with the Milanese middle classes. His surname is steeped in history, and is notoriously a crossroads of contradictions and reflections, particularly on the left: he is the son of that police commissioner Luigi Calabresi who was killed at the behest of members of Lotta Continua (according to a court-established truth that is often contested), who was in turn accused of being the instigator of the murder of the anarchist Pinelli, but was later exonerated and redefined as an unwitting victim of events. Mario Calabresi has never hidden this history; on the contrary, he has highlighted it in his stories. He was only two years old at the time, but this incident clearly left a lasting mark on him.
Journalistic career
He is a journalist and writer, aged 56, born and brought up in Milan. He was editor-in-chief of La Stampa between 2009 and 2015 and of Repubblica from 2016 to 2019. He then founded Chora Media, where he is editorial director. He remains one of Italia’s best-selling non-fiction authors to this day, so much so that a question in the latest A-level exam was based on one of his books (‘Alzarsi all’alba’).
