After one of the worst post-war campaigns, Milan must return to the city we know

Luckily it's almost over. Sunday we will vote and on Monday, in addition to seeing who will be the winner between Moratti and Pisapia, we will be able to make the first evaluations on what will be, if not the rubble, the dross of one of the most poisonous electoral campaigns of the post-war period. And it is with these wastes and poisons that the winner of the ballot will have to deal. Already because, whoever wins, Milan will have to be managed well. Whether or not a mosque is built, the point of arrival must be the appointment with the Expo. An appointment to which the city would present itself in the worst possible way if it were not possible to recompose a framework of civil decency, put to the test in this electoral month and a half. It is worth summarizing, as briefly as possible, the facts both in the field of the centre-right and in that of the centre-left. Let's start with the deployment of the outgoing mayor. Moratti is re-nominated after much grumbling. The League frowns, it would prefer its own candidate, perhaps the free-range Matteo Salvini. But he also knows that Milan is not his strong point. And then he finally accepts. But making it clear that he does it without enthusiasm. Even in the PDL, not everyone thinks that the lady's is the best choice. Berlusconi is worried, so he breaks the delay and runs himself as a candidate for the City Council. After all, he has already done it on other occasions. Then he goes further and throws the challenge. What Milan, he says, is a national clash; you have to win in the first round because it is a referendum on me and my government. Moratti sketches it out, even when Berlusconi concludes his Monday presence at the hearings of the Court of Milan with as many flying rallies, in which he attacks with exasperated tones the prosecutors who put him on trial. However, the outgoing mayor is the first to be indignant when the lawyer Lassini fills the city with posters in which he speaks of Red Brigade prosecutors. Lassini is asked to leave the list. In the end he accepts (but technically he is always a candidate) and however suggests that the prime minister is substantially in agreement with him. The electoral campaign is inflamed, the tones continue to rise. And in the end even Moratti slips up, accusing Pisapia of having stolen a car when she was a member of the extra-parliamentary left in her youth. The leftist candidate is indignant and has good luck in showing that he was acquitted of that charge (after refusing the statute of limitations) on appeal with full formula. We pass to the centre-left. Here, too, the choice of candidate for mayor is difficult. We go through the primaries. The favorite candidate is that of Pd Stefano Boeri. However, he is defeated by Pisapia. The latter, after having been an independent parliamentarian elected with the Communist Refoundation in the past, is supported above all by Nichi Vendola's Left and Freedom. Before the primaries, Pisapia and Boeri had made a pact: whichever of the two prevailed would help the other beat Moratti. The pact was honoured, and Boeri thus became the highly voted leader of the Democratic Party list. Meanwhile Pisapia manages to give the city a moderate image of his candidacy. The fact that he was the president of the Justice Commission of the Chamber who most distinguished himself for a guarantor profile, even in times of widespread justicialism, helps him. And then he is an esteemed lawyer, who comes from an important family in the Milan of the professions. Among its supporters is Piero Bassetti, the first president of the Lombardy region, an authoritative exponent of the Catholic world, who brings together in the old headquarters of the De Amicis club (a place historically dear to the socialists) a task force of authoritative representatives of the Milanese bourgeoisie to help the centre-left candidate. Judging by the results of the first round, the operation to make Pisapia as bourgeois and Milanese as possible succeeds, given that it has a good advantage in the ballot (48,05% to 41,59%, a gap of 6,46% percentage points) on Moratti. The last days of the electoral campaign are incandescent. Berlusconi returns to the fore and together with Bossi denounces the Islamization of Milan in the event of the victory of Pisapia the "extremist". Then the prime minister takes issue with the red flags that portend a new Italian Stalingrad, tries to promise the transfer of ministries to Milan, but then, faced with the wrath of Alemanno and Polverini, he has to backtrack. To succeed in the comeback, the centre-right will have to bring those of its voters who did not vote in the first round to the ballot, abstaining or preferring the centrist candidate. It's unlikely, but not impossible. Moratti is aiming for the greater commitment of a League which, however, has emerged visibly weakened from the first electoral round. To maintain Pisapia's advantage, he must present himself as the candidate with the most moderate tones possible. It is no coincidence that he invited his followers to avoid fights and to turn the other cheek in a Christian way to any provocateurs. He's the favourite, but he hasn't won yet. In the background remain the problems of Milan and the Expo. To resolve these, more than the exasperated tones on the mosques, the shrewd words that Manzoni had the Count uncle and the Provincial Father of the Capuchins say to resolve the clash between Don Rodrigo and Father Cristoforo would be needed: “Troncare and sopire.