Confirmed the legitimacy of the election of Giuseppe Conte as president of the M5s. The news that arrives from the Court of Naples makes the former premier breathe a deep breath of relief: Judge Loredana Ferrara (seventh civil section of the Court) this time rejected the appeal presented by a group of activists represented by the lawyer Lorenzo Borrè against the amendments to the statute of the M5s and the reconfirmation of Conte as president. Voting repeated last March after the same Court of Naples had annulled that of August 2021. In summary, to remain at the most relevant points of the appeal: for the judges, the use of the SkyVote platform instead of Rousseau had no reflection on the validity of the vote; the exclusion of those registered for less than six months from the voting was judged legitimate: not only did it not change the outcome but it avoided exploitation; the indication of Conte as president by Beppe Grillo did not mean his sure election – and therefore a co-option – because the election was in any case left to the will of the assembly of members, who could also have voted no.
Remains the bitter defeat to the municipal
Legal reasons aside, the political data is clear: the decision locks down, at least for now, Conte at the head of the movement and makes internal maneuvers more difficult to weaken or replace him with a more Atlanticist leadership closer to the Draghi government. Of course, the scorching defeat to the municipalities remains and weighs heavily, which demonstrated the evaporation of the M5s on the territories (even in the Sicilian stronghold of Palermo, where the movement stops below 7%). For this reason, Conte’s first reaction was the appointment of 20 regional managers for the relaunch of the “new course”, which is no longer so new after a year and a half from the appointment by Beppe Grillo. In any case, the reconfirmed president will have more serenity in dealing with the difficult passage of the vote of the members on the vexed question of the limit of two mandates: a rule defended by the Guarantor Grillo and which, if confirmed, would exclude a large part of the ruling class from the next electoral lists. Starting with the President of the Chamber Roberto Fico and above all the Foreign Minister as well as the main internal competitor Luigi Di Maio. Conte for his part does not take sides (“I will not say how I think on this point so as not to influence the vote of the members”), but it is clear that from his point of view the question of the double mandate represents a weapon to dethrone Di Maio and the of him.
Ukraine and double mandate: the Dimaiani are counted
There is a double mandate, and there is the war in Ukraine and support for the Draghi government. In commenting on the outcome of the municipal Conte, as well as the other great defeated by the polls Matteo Salvini, he explicitly evoked the exit from the government (“many ask for it, and we must listen to the citizens”) blaming the decline of the consensus precisely to support Draghi (“it is clear that we are paying a price”). Words that immediately alarmed the Dimaians, who no longer exclude – now that Conte is at least temporarily strengthened at the head of the movement – the formation of autonomous groups in Parliament. Also in view of the composition of the lists: between the cut of the parliamentarians and the collapse of the M5s in the consensus, only about fifty of the troops of over 300 elected representatives could return in 2023. And if all the places will go to the contiani and the new entries, we might as well try the luck of a new political movement.
Greater instability for the government
As for the evocation of the exit from the government by Conte and the leader of the Lega Salvini it must be said that a crisis, if politics still has a logic, never opens on the wave of a defeat. Even Salvini’s failed attempt in the summer of Papeete two years ago was on the wave of the overwhelming victory in the Europeans with 34%. More likely that the two leaders defeated at the polls, despite not having the political strength to break the rope also because this would cause a revolt if not a split in their respective parties, will accentuate their turbulence in the coming weeks. Not a real crisis, but certainly a premise of instability and navigation difficulties for the Draghi government in the difficult months that await us, between the war in Ukraine and the objective of implementing the essential reforms to continue to collect the funds from Brussels. Pnrr.
The fears of the Democratic Party, which opens the “campo largo” to Calenda and Renzi
Meanwhile, the collapse of the penstastellati in the municipal vote pushes the Pd of Enrico Letta more and more to question the perimeter of the wide field. It is in these hours the appeal of the secretary dem to Carlo Calenda with his Action and to Matteo Renzi with Italia Viva to converge everyone in the second round in the cities against the right. “I will speak with everyone, even with Calenda and Renzi, both on territories and at a national level, to convince them of the importance of the center-left winning the ballot ». The Latvian mission remains to lay the foundations of the broad field immediately, starting with the ballots of June 25, and then build a coalition that brings together the left of Leu, M5s, Action and IV for the policies of 2023. A road entirely in uphill, but the only one that the Democratic Party can take to try to compete in the single-member colleges of the Rosatellum.