Are we with the Third Pole or with the M5S? Do we defend the 41-bis or Cospito? Is Meloni capable or incapable? The Pd it seems to get screwed up in a whirlwind of doubts that could undermine its very existence and the election of the new secretary might not be decisive.
“The Democratic Party is very disoriented and so are its voters,” he explains Carlo Buttaroni, director of the Tecné Institute who invites the party to “find its own guiding star” and to decide which categories it intends to represent. “Once the left represented the working class, today we don’t know”, says the pollster, highlighting the need for the Democratic Party to “should start again from the suburbs, from the world of work and discomfort because, for too long, it has been linked to the enemies of workers such as aggressive finance”. A position shared by Senator Enrico Borghi who invites his party “not to get entangled in sometimes cloying internal issues”, but to “concentrate on the proposal for the country”. Proposal which, according to the democratic senator, must be based on the fight against “social and territorial inequalities without falling back into past models”. Deputy Mauro Berruto disputes the representation of a now defunct Democratic Party: “Many refer to the Democratic Party as a political entity that no longer exists, yet everyone continues to talk obsessively about the Democratic Party. Evidently the unconscious plays tricks”. Of course, the party’s crisis is also evident to the former coach of the men’s national volleyball team who points the way: “The Democratic Party must forget any reflection on alliances, which today makes no sense, and do only one thing: the strength of the center left, progressive, the main force of opposition to this pro-tempore right-wing majority”. Second paola de micheli, candidate for the party secretariat, “the Democratic Party needs to return to representing the majority of the country and not a sum of minorities” and must put issues such as work, school, environmental transition and youth policies back at the center. “You cannot think of alliances and coalitions only from the point of view of an algebraic sum”, explains the Emilian deputy who considers the Democratic Party “the pivot of the centre-left” because also “the results of the regional ones have confirmed that there are no alternatives if you want strike to the right”.
The crisis of the Democratic Party, according to the political scientist Lorenzo Castellani, lies in the scarce habit of being in the opposition, after years in which it has occupied “almost all the boxes of the establishment”. “For this reason Letta and Bonaccini hold back in attacks on Meloni, because a good relationship with the majority can always come in handy. On the contrary, those like Schlein who aim for the polarization and demonization of the adversary oppose this line”, explains the Luiss professor. A demonization that finds the stigmatization of Pier Ferdinando Casini according to which “the era in which the political opponent must be criminalized is over and, therefore, the statements of Bonaccini and Letta do not seem to me to cause scandal”. Pollster Buttaroni is also of the same opinion, considering it “an act of political civilization with respect to the demonization of the adversary in recent years”, while “the discussions belong only to the political controversy within the Democratic Party”. In this regard, De Micheli’s position is very clear: “The problem is not Meloni’s personal abilities, but the policies she is implementing”. The candidate for the secretariat contests the government’s economic choices, differentiated autonomy and “Meloni’s approach to issues such as the Cospito case, with all that has resulted from it in the Chamber and outside, is inadmissible”. Yet, according to Castellani, only “a softer position towards Meloni could make sense because without speaking to the right-wing electorate for the PD there is no possibility of recovering” and, therefore, the Democratic Party must solve the problem of alliances. “Here, however, arises the problem of alliances. A partnership with the third pole would make sense if the operation is to open up to the right, but in this logic an alliance with the 5 stars would not make sense. But without them, numbers in hand, the elections are lost. It’s a puzzle from which it’s difficult to get out”, says Castellani.