Maybe it’s because she promised “one secretarial meeting a week” that for two months, after her election as secretary, she remained untraceable even to her collaborators. It will be that the exhortation to exercise “collective leadership” is uttered by whoever the secretariat announced it live on Instagram from her bedroom. Perhaps it will be that the customs clearance of Niccolò Fabi and Daniele Silvestri and Diodato as masters of thought of the Democratic Party – a choice, horrible to say, almost Renziana – immediately makes the various dem notables turn up their noses. Finally, it will be that in the uncertainty between “being uncomfortable to fight the right” and “make yourself comfortable because the change has just begun”, we all end up not understanding how we should be, in front of Elly Schlein. The fact is that the leader’s words fall a bit like stones on the sand, without echo or resonance. Without making “noise”, to stay in Diodato. So the direction of the Democratic Party develops almost as if Schlein’s speech, his explanations, even his jabs, nobody really heard them. Even when she would like to reassure – especially then, on the contrary – about the relationship with grillismo and the hesitations about the war (“We don’t agree on everything at all, with the M5s. There are enormous gaps on Ukraine”) the secretary seems voiceless, perhaps even despite oneself. And perhaps this is why, to avoid dissections, Schlein decides to put to the vote not the complete report, but the seven programmatic points of his ‘agenda’. Technicality that he says of a certain breathlessness.
Maybe it’s because she promised “one secretarial meeting a week” that for two months, after her election as secretary, she remained untraceable even to her collaborators. It will be that the exhortation to exercise “collective leadership” is uttered by whoever the secretariat announced it live on Instagram from her bedroom. Perhaps it will be that the customs clearance of Niccolò Fabi and Daniele Silvestri and Diodato as masters of thought of the Democratic Party – a choice, horrible to say, almost Renziana – immediately makes the various dem notables turn up their noses. Finally, it will be that in the uncertainty between “being uncomfortable to fight the right” and “make yourself comfortable because the change has just begun”, we all end up not understanding how we should be, in front of Elly Schlein. The fact is that the leader’s words fall a bit like stones on the sand, without echo or resonance. Without making “noise”, to stay in Diodato. So the direction of the Democratic Party develops almost as if Schlein’s speech, his explanations, even his jabs, nobody really heard them. Even when she would like to reassure – especially then, on the contrary – about the relationship with grillismo and the hesitations about the war (“We don’t agree on everything at all, with the M5s. There are still enormous distances over Ukraine”) the secretary seems voiceless, perhaps even despite oneself. And perhaps this is why, to avoid dissections, Schlein decides to put to the vote not the complete report, but the seven programmatic points of his ‘agenda’. Technicality that he says of a certain breathlessness.
And it is fatally on that knot, on that ambiguity, that the debate turns. So here he is, Stefano Bonaccini, in the double role of party president (at his debut) and deuteragonist (unconvinced, even before being unconvincing) saying that of course, “I have nothing against participating in other people’s demonstrations”, also because “coalitions are important, if we don’t want to be a minority”: and yet “we must be the ones to take the initiative, not trail others”. Evoked here, Giuseppe Conte, will remain the unnamed specter of the whole discussion. Him and his misunderstood “pacifism”. Alessandro Alfieri, responsible for Reforms and Pnrr of the Nazarene in Bonaccini’s share, is also pressing on this. “I understand that it was useful to send a delegation to the M5s demonstration. I understand less the need to expose the secretary to the contradictions of that square”, says the senator. Which focuses on the anti-Ukrainian propaganda exhibited by the grillino stage. “It comforts me to know that the Democratic Party does not change its position on the war. However, I say that our attitudes outside the Chamber must also be a consequence of the votes we make in Parliament”. It is therefore the turn of Pina Picierno, vice president of the European Parliament and former sidekick of Bonaccini, to play the same notes: “Too often I hear our leaders say that we support Ukraine but seek peace. The point is that to support Ukraine is to seek peace”.
Peppe Provenzano therefore takes on the task of defending the geopolitical line: “On Ukraine we remain consistent. Moni Ovadia’s words horrified me”. All of this, encysted in a reasoning that almost seems to induce critics not to expect too much, given the current climate. “If we look at Europe, it must be said that we progressives sail against the wind”. But it is precisely in the light of the global unknowns that Lorenzo Guerini suggests being rigorous with the M5s. “On Trumpism’s comeback, for example, and in view of the American elections, there is still something unresolved in the M5s: and I say this to highlight what contradictions in the relationship with the 5s we must face in order to build an alternative camp to the right”. The same obviously applies to the stammering about Kyiv: “And yet that is a decisive question – continues Guerini – because the war against Ukraine is changing history”.
Schlein’s, on the other hand, is a story that for now looks to the summer to come. “Militant summer”, as she puts it. The celebration of Unity moved to flooded Ravenna, the imperative to set up debates that are not just between men, and then the battle, just right, to transform the Pnrr into a popular theme, and goad Giorgia Meloni on that, as well as on the issue of wages and public health. With the hope, however, that the scenario feared by Lia Quartapelle on leaving the Nazarene will not really take shape: “Because following the line of Syriza, one ends up ending up like Syriza”. Which perhaps many new leaders of the Democratic Party would not even mind. If it weren’t for that, it would mean condemning yourself to lose in the next round as well.