«Calenda like Renzi? Ninth. Calenda is truly a unique case ». It may be that more than eight years have passed since that # Enricostaisereno by Matteo Renzi new secretary of the Democratic Party that preceded the defenestration of Enrico Letta from Palazzo Chigi, but Carlo Calenda who on Tuesday signs the agreement written with the Democratic Party of Letta and with his list mates Benedetto Della Vedova and Emma Bonino and on Sunday he tears everything up live on TV to try the solitary adventure of the Third Pole is priceless. In the eyes of the Nazarene and Più Europa it is above all he, the leader of Action, who has won the license of unreliability. “In my long political life I had never seen such a sudden, unmotivated and fraudulent about-face”, is the sentence of the radical leader Bonino.
Threshold of 3% and question of signatures: marriage of interest
Unreliability license aside, the two – Renzi and Calenda – are now forced to sign a pact to launch the famous Third Pole and attempt to climb to the moderate votes of the center-right: the former premier and former secretary dem because with Italy alone Viva would risk not exceeding the 3% threshold set by the infamous Rosatellum developed by his right-hand man Ettore Rosato at the time when he was still at the helm of the Democratic Party; Calenda because, finding himself without the cover of the More Europe symbol of Della Vedova and Bonino, he would have been forced to collect the signatures for the candidacy in a few hours: 750 signatures, complete with official certification, in each of the 245 constituencies only in the Chamber. An unlikely undertaking even for structured parties, let alone for Action.
The attacks on Twitter. And the recognition: Renzi one of the best premier
And then one makes a virtue of necessity, forgetting the quarrels on Twitter triggered above all by Calenda. Who in recent months has accused his “knife brother” Renzi of opaque reports for consultancy paid by Saudi Arabia: “There is no case in the West of someone who takes money from a foreign state, moreover totalitarian, while he is paid as a senator of the Republic ». And again, after the rupture of the Roman alliance that brought the Calenda List to 20% in the first round of the municipalities in the capital: “I loved him (to Renzi, ed), but he was born a scrapper and has become a modernized version of Mastella ». Yet Calenda has always claimed his experience as Renzi’s minister, to whom he attributes the merit of having been “one of the best presidents of the Council of the Republic”
When in 2018 Renzi said: Carlo will be the front man of the Democratic Party
So? The point is that the two are too similar, they both have leadership ambitions and fish in the same electoral basin: the liberal-democratic, reformist, anti-hail and which looks to the disappointed moderates of Forza Italia. Two roosters in the same chicken coop. Now of necessity we try to make virtue, and Renzi has taken the step back in time: “I’m not interested in being a front man, Carlo can do it.” On the other hand, the former prime minister is well aware of the litigation rate of his former minister, ever since he sent him to Europe for a few months to be ambassador in Brussels for Italy, making many professional diplomats turn up their noses: “Since you are complaining, I am sending you one more quarrelsome than me and very good on the dossiers: Calenda,” he said, replying to the criticisms. Upon returning from Brussels, Calenda held the position of Minister of Economic Development, that of Industry 4.0. And when in the long weeks after the 2018 elections there was also the possibility of an immediate return to the polls due to the difficulties of setting up a government, the still secretary of the Pd Renzi had focused on Calenda: “He will be the front man , in case”. They were both still in the Democratic Party. Then things went the way they did.
Too similar and too different: will it last?
Politically very similar – they think the same way on almost everything, in Italy and in Europe where they both sit in Emmanuel Macron’s Renew Europe – Renzi and Calenda have so far been divided by their respective characters and personal ambitions. Will they really know how to make a virtue of necessity?