The center-left conquers Rome and Turin, but the abstention wins – Michael Braun

It could not have been worse for the center-right: he did not touch the ball either in Rome or in Turin, after having already lost badly two weeks ago in Milan, Naples and Bologna. It seems that the profile of the candidate mattered little (there was no mention of candidates in this round, neither on the right nor on the left). It was a defeat both for Enrico Michetti in Rome, a joke character who came out of the ravines of a local radio, alluring to the no vax and nostalgic of fascism, and for Paolo Damilano, a moderate entrepreneur in Turin. And local alliances didn’t matter much either. In Milan, Rome and Turin the Democratic Party (Pd) and its historical allies won without the support of the 5 Star Movement (M5s), while in Naples and Bologna an “enlarged” center left triumphed at the M5s.

But above all abstention has won over. This fact should inspire great caution in drawing hasty conclusions for future national scenarios. When more than 50 percent of citizens simply stay at home, not giving a damn about who their mayor will be (as mentioned, there is not much talk of mayor), there is a need to worry.

We can ask ourselves the reasons for this massive abstention. Is it due to the belief that politics no longer moves anything? Is it due to the absence of parties? To say: in my neighborhood of Rome there have been no electoral posters and even less stands or gazebos of the candidates (except that of Gualtieri, in the square, closed almost every day). Is it due to the fact that the parties, from the League to the Democratic Party to Liberi e Equals, are perceived as gregarious forces of a government dominated by Mario Draghi’s technocrats?

Faced with this triumph of abstention, no party has reasons to rejoice. But the fact remains that the vote affects the parties in a very different way. Enrico Letta can be happy. The forces hostile to him within his own party in the face of the success of the Democratic Party will calm down a bit. Letta will be able to carry out his project of a “wide field”, of a center-left alliance open also to Giuseppe Conte’s M5s. But the work begins now. What will this broad field be, a not entirely new formula? If we think of the inauspicious experiences of the Prodi governments (of 1996-1998 and 2006-2008) with their really “wide” coalitions – from Lamberto Dini and Clemente Mastella to Fausto Bertinotti and Franco Turigliatto of the “anticapitalist left” of Trotskyist extraction – we the eternal question arises: what will be Letta’s recipe not only to beat the right in the polls but to then govern?

The most important ally in that future center-left would be the M5s, which came out battered from these elections, with results from the telephone area code in many cities. It must be said that, with few exceptions such as the elections in Rome or Turin in 2016, the M5s has always had serious difficulties in establishing itself at the local (and even regional) level. But he will not solve his tragedies by addressing the problem of roots in the territories (a very open problem).

The real core is that of the identity of a movement born in protest, against the “caste”, neither right nor left “, which now has prospects of survival only as a governing force within the center-left. Who therefore must seek an alliance with the Democratic Party without flattening himself on Letta’s party: an exercise that is anything but easy for a political force under the leadership of Giuseppe Conte, always very popular according to all the polls but always a character with a not too defined identity either. him, having governed first with the League and then with the Democratic Party without batting an eye. The ideas would be there, from the commitment of the cinquestelle for a policy closer to the citizens to the ecological demands, more current than ever. It remains to be seen whether the M5s will finally be able to create an identity that goes beyond protest.

Who has to bandage his head, but not too much, is the Italian right. He was very wrong about the candidates’ choices, between the gunfighter from Milan (brought by Salvini) and the unlikely lecturer from Rome (wanted by Meloni). He was also wrong to wink at the no vax (but how much do they count in an 85 percent vaccinated population?), But the reasons that have made Italian populism strong are all there. The Lega and Fratelli d’Italia electorate remained at home, but did not change shirts. It is always present, which can be mobilized on future occasions. There are those who want the “wave of populism” to have “deflated” with this round of elections. But who tells us? Certainly not a vote in which most of the citizens, primarily those on the right, remained at home.