The M5s carries on, now the coalition for Emilia Romagna is a puzzle

The day following the certification “the wide field no longer exists”, for Giuseppe Conte is marked by a dense series of meetings with his members, parliamentarians and leading leaders of the 5 Star Movement. Meetings that the former prime minister holds on a regular basis, but which today also included the ‘shock’ given to the centre-left on the agenda.

Conte gained from this, according to those present at the meetings, a “total unity” among the M5s ruling class. On the other hand, the leader of the Movement could not have expected anything different: the embrace with Renzism has always been seen as the ‘specter’ to be avoided, both by the ruling group and by the base of the movement who had the opportunity to express themselves on the point during the first phase of the Constituent Assembly.

“Yes with the Democratic Party, never with Renzi“, is the summary of the positions that can be obtained from reading the contributions left on the online platform made available by M5s. And if Italia Viva makes it known that its symbol will be present on the ballot paper next to de Pascale’s name, the coalition that supports the mayor of Ravenna in the race for the Region is back in the balance. From the M5s they underline that the echo of Giuseppe Conte’s words on the end of the broad camp do not change the terms of the agreement in the Region which, it is underlined, excluded the support of Italy for the centre-left Long live, and his symbol, to De Pascale.

Now, after the Renzians have announced that they will be present on the ballot, it goes back to the candidate, they point out again from the Movement. “There is politics even without Renzi”, underlines the M5s group leader in the Chamber, Francesco Silvestri. “The opposition have made interesting projects on autonomy, minimum wage, citizen’s income and much more. I don’t think that without Renzi there is no life, on the contrary, I think that without him the progressive camp is much more coherent. we need a person who, no longer having much credibility, looks for the horse to get on and then tries to throw it off the next second”, adds Silvestri.

In the meantime, however, the flow of reactions from the Democratic Party to the position taken by the head of the Movement does not stop. Reactions that seem to want to diminish what for Campo Marzio is an insurmountable political limit: “it is very serious that after having raised political issues regarding our total incompatibility with Matteo Renzi, the Dem leadership declassifies everything as ‘controversy’ and ‘games'” .

Not only that. The M5s leaders point out that it is not because of the choices of the Movement that we found ourselves, once again, divided over the leader of Italia Viva. Rather, the reasoning goes, it was those who “did not have the courage to slam the door in the face” of the former scrap dealer who brought Matteo Renzi back to center stage. A not too veiled reference to Elly Schlein and the “we neither veto nor accept them from others” pronounced by the Democratic secretary at the beginning of the summer. An opening, for the Five Star Movement, thanks to which Renzi has effectively entered the perimeter of the centre-left using the regional elections as a back door for the coalition at a national level.

On the contrary, i Five Stars reiterate their otherness from Italia Viva and from the season of Renzism. A prominent M5s leader then underlines that there are no personal or ideological reasons behind this distance, but concrete issues. On the one hand, Renzi’s Jobs Act and, on the other, the citizen’s income; Renzi’s conferences abroad and the law on conflict of interests requested by the M5s; Renzi’s Jobs Act and the minimum wage. Issues that weigh heavily and in the face of which, the Five Star Movement observe, “Schlein shrugs, but the issue is not Conte, but rather understanding that the alternative to Meloni cannot be built with a simple sum of work”.