ROME. The “phase 2” of the Cinquestelle Movement begins in the territories after Sunday’s electoral flop. President Giuseppe Conte said this in the first press conference after the vote. “We have to be present on the streets and in the neighborhoods continuously. The protagonists will be the territorial groups that our members will be able to build in our cities to obtain the full participation of citizens who have to become protagonists again ». And this “also to defeat abstention, a disease of democracy”. In the territorial reorganization of the M5s “there will be referents, identified as regional coordinators and from next week also the provincial coordinators”. Even so “we are confident of recovering those citizens who are out of love with politics.”
By the end of June – then announces Conte – the M5s will call the online consultation on the double mandate. Conte specified that he, however, will not express himself to support one position or another. “I will not express myself in favor of one outcome or another, but I do not think it is in Cinquestelle’s spirit to open an indefinite number of mandates because politics cannot become a profession, because it can create distortions: there is the risk of a distraction from the public good and perhaps greater attention to personal destiny “. The Movement will then call another vote for the destination of the refunds: “It is a question of assigning a sum of about 5 million euros”.
At the administrative level, the M5s – admits Conte – “has obtained an absolutely unsatisfactory result, it does not satisfy us even if the Movement has historically not had great performances in the territories”. He takes responsibility, “but we pay a high price for a very high ethical rate”. Calenda’s success? “Certain mechanisms do not belong to us,” he cuts short. “I am in line with what Mayor Manfredi says: if we talk about openness to active civicism, we are open. If, on the other hand, we have to build the future fate of the progressive front with Italia Viva, which I have never met in the territories and I have not met its symbol or of Calenda which has carried out targeted and very cunning operations, then different operations are carried out. But citizens should not be told nonsense ».
No new Cinquestelle brand and no list associated with his name: «We consider the M5S brand to be a quality brand, and I have no ambition to replace it with my surname. If we fail to communicate it, we ask ourselves, and the answer is probably that we have not been able to work in contact with citizens. If this is so, we were wrong, we must roll up our sleeves and talk to them “, adds Conte, reiterating:” I have not endorsed any list, because I work with us and not with me, and I don’t think that a political project should develop on a personal basis “.
Then answering questions from journalists, Conte once again guaranteed support for the Draghi government. In reality, he points out, «Traveling Italy from North to South, the request to leave the government is continuous. Our electorate is suffering and we do not feel like turning our backs on the citizens. I said it when we entered the government and now that we have screwed ourselves into a recessive spiral: we are responsible, but that no one tells us “shut up”, that there is a suspension of the political dialectic ».