The objective of the centrists of the Democratic Party is double, like the two events that animated the dem weekend, that of the reformists in Orvieto and that of the Catholics in Milan. Rebalancing the axis of the Democratic Party, considered today too far to the left, for the former. Imagine a person outside the Democratic Party who speaks to the moderate and Catholic electorate, for the latter. This is to summarize. In reality the positions on the field are much more jagged.
This is demonstrated by the words of a high-ranking reformist exponent such as Lorenzo Guerini, deputy and reference figure of the Dem minority. Interviewed by AGI, Guerini invites us to avoid “a return to old ideas on supposed divisions of tasks, because a Democratic Party that renounces and leaves the task of representing parts of Italian society to others would no longer be the Democratic Party”. Having said this, the former minister adds that “strengthening the reformist offer within the Democratic Party, without giving up comparison and discussion, is useful to the Democratic Party and the centre-left. The history of all the major parties is a history of comparison and discussion, conducted fairly; today, however, it seems that when politics is told, comparison is seen as something almost heterodox, something negative. I, however, think that the opposite is true , because the You have to earn space for discussion, you don’t have to wait for it. Complaining that there is no discussion in the party leaves a little time left, there is or isn’t discussion depending on the issues you raise and how. you place them.”
Guerini’s idea, therefore, is to take advantage of a “propitious phase: until October there are no politically significant elections and it could be a useful moment to strengthen and better define the offer of the alternative to the right, which for me cannot than to be that of a new centre-left, which starts from what already exists but tries to expand and structure itself even more effectively. There is a need to work towards this objective, as Prodi also said. My task is to do so by contributing to strengthen the Democratic Party which is, also thanks to the work of his secretary, the cornerstone of this alternative”.
Despite this, the pressure on the secretary is there and is being felt. To the many voices that followed one another during the meetings in Milan and Orvieto, from Romano Prodi to Paolo Gentiloni, today was added that of Matteo Renzi. “I have the impression that the Schlein-led PD is struggling to represent the world of the center that looks to the left”, says Renzi, no stranger to ‘calls’ towards the reformists of the PD.
“Those who say they want to stay in the Democratic Party at all costs, what are they doing about the referendum on the JobsAct?” asks Renzi: “How can they vote against the separation of careers, a historic battle of the left-wing guaranteeists? My opinion is simple: Schlein gave new life to the Democratic Party but transformed it into a much more left-wing party than Veltroni or myself.” And this “discovers” the more centrist side, warns Renzi for whom “the reformists must think of a container other than the Democratic Party if they want to occupy this political space”.
The leader of Italia Viva had ended up in the blender of the center federation together with the ‘star’ of the Catholics gathered in Milan, Ernesto Ruffini, the mayor of Milan, Beppe Sala, and Paolo Gentiloni, among the speakers in Orvieto. According to Democratic Party sources, Elly Schlein has no intention of getting involved in an internal dispute which, in the past, has already claimed excellent victims among the Dem secretaries. The leader remained at work at the Nazarene, the hotbed of that Program for Italy with which she is nominating the Democratic Party and the future center-left coalition to lead the country.
From the Nazarene it is known that any contribution that strengthens the Democratic Party is welcome, while at the same time underlining the progress made by the Dems since the beginning of Schlein’s mandate, with the recovery in consensus, the 6-0 victory in the administrative elections and the victories in the regional in Umbria and Emilia-Romagna. Results which are well known to the centrists and which currently represent Schlein’s best insurance policy on the Nazarene.
However, among the reformists and Catholics of the Democratic Party, there is an invitation to look further and not be satisfied with the good performances of the party, to look to the future, to a government proposal. Proposal, this is the subtext, which does not end in the axis with M5s and Avs: Ernesto Ruffini himself has focused on this when speaking of the Ursula majority as an alternative to the right.
As for the representation of the reformist forces, a member of the Dem minority points out that, if the objective is to win places on the list, the secretary has demonstrated that she has no preclusions in this sense. At the last European elections there was no shortage of exponents of the Dem minority, starting with Stefano Bonaccini, who is the reference figure of the minority.
Concept echoed by leader IV: “If completely legitimately” the reformists who militate in the Democratic Party “want to occupy some places on the electoral lists next time, then that’s another matter”, writes Renzi again on his blog: “But at that point the Meloni risks occupying the center, which would be paradoxical to say the least.”
The mayor of Milan also expresses himself in an interview for a central subject outside the Democratic Party. “I talked about it a lot with the secretary and I don’t think I misunderstood if I said that Schlein also hopes for a force that also strengthens the Democratic Party”, says Sala.