Dissolve and scrape the Democratic Party as if it were a bad company to create a “red thing” that runs in the embrace with Giuseppe Conte’s M5s, as the former Prime Minister Massimo D’Alema suggests not too much between the lines in an interview with Everyday occurrence? Or go back to the origins of the majority vocation of 2007-8, that is the Democratic Party “a post-ideological, reformist subject, with a strong anchor in the values of the democratic left, who aims to obtain consent to govern”, as the first secretary Walter Veltroni points out in an interview with the press?
The “vintage” effect: after 15 years still D’Alema and Veltroni
15 years after its birth, the Democratic Party is on its way to yet another congress to choose yet another secretary – the tenth – without having dissolved the original knots. And the effect is truly “vintage”, with Conte’s pro M5s left and Carlo Calenda and Matteo Renzi’s pro Terzo Polo reformists armed against each other just like in the days of D’Alema and Veltroni. Both coming from the PCI-PDS-DS, the former never really believed in the Veltronian Democratic Party project and had already declared to accept it out of necessity, while the latter staked everything on building a house for reformists that would unite socialist cultures. Catholic and Liberal Democrat. However, a house that does not seem to have solid foundations: some of the reformists have long since left the party, starting with the former premier and secretary Renzi and his former minister Calenda, and the other party does not feel too well if even a a great old man of the Catholic area like Beppe Fioroni took to the field in these hours to send out his cry of alarm: «We certainly haven’t closed DS and Margherita to go and join Conte’s wingmen. We must seek a positive dialogue with Calenda and Renzi ».
A left to Mèlenchon or the challenge to the center for the government?
A left-wing party allied with Conte for a Mèlenchon-style pole that considers the representation of the weaker and marginalized classes a priority or a reformist party with a central view that considers the challenge of the government a priority? It is clear that Veltroni’s bet 15 years ago was to create a party that was both, but it is also clear that perhaps “the amalgamation did not succeed”, as D’Alema already said then.
Towards the Congress: leading edge and left against the rise of Bonaccini
This is the ideal clash that is the background to the internal confrontation which, with the management convened by the secretary Enrico Letta, will lead to the celebration of the congress and a new leadership in the first months of 2023. The governor is already on the pitch for the reformist area. from Emilia Romagna Stefano Bonaccini: supported by the former reformist base Renzians and by a vast network of mayors and local administrators, his candidacy scares not only the party left but also the leaders who are not on the left (from Dario Franceschini to Andrea Orlando, from Nicola Zingaretti to Beppe Provenzano): all intent on keeping the party keys tight. Of the “firm”, to use the famous expression of the then secretary Pier Luigi Bersani.
The push to extend the time of the congress and thus delay the “count”
Hence the various proposals arrived in these hours of dissolution of the Democratic Party, or of its unspecified re-foundation, with the ill-concealed intention of extending the time of the congress and thus preventing Bonaccini from taking control of the “firm”. At least until a candidacy able to really compete has emerged (the young Elly Schlein, very close to Letta, is considered “weak”, but perhaps above all too independent). And from here, too, the re-emerging proposals to abolish the primaries open to voters to make the secretary choose only to members: it is clear that with the gazebos open to all, the leadership becomes truly contestable, as demonstrated by Renzi’s political affair.