With the filing of the candidacies, the deadline for which expires on Saturday 14 January, the electoral campaign for the regional elections in Lombardy and Lazio begins. Voting will take place on 12 and 13 February. In the last legislature in Lombardy the right ruled with the Northern League Attilio Fontana, in Lazio the center-left with the former secretary of the Democratic Party Nicola Zingaretti. This is a very important political step, at least for the future of citizens. The parties, on the other hand, have so far appeared at least distracted.
Final victory is obviously declared by each candidate as the main political goal. But it is also true that, barring surprises, the victory of a candidate in itself will hardly have consequences on a national level, as has happened in the past. Hypothesizing alternatives to the right-wing government in the short term is in fact very difficult, and it is equally difficult to imagine that the centre-left could try to rebalance the relationship with the right using a possible positive result in the regional elections as a political argument. Thus, the attention of many has shifted above all to the result that the individual parties belonging to the same alignment but in competition with each other will bring back. Never as on this occasion, in fact, will this fact, more than the victory or defeat of a candidate for the presidency, be able to trigger political consequences even at the national level, in the relations between the political forces. This is particularly evident in the centre-left.
In those parts, in fact, the blow remedied last September 25 in the elections for the renewal of the parliament was of no use. Despite the extent of the mistakes made, the Democratic Party (Pd), the 5 Star Movement (M5s) and the Third Pole continued to march divided. In Lombardy – where the right has re-nominated the outgoing president, the Northern League Attilio Fontana – Pd and M5s present themselves together, with Pierfrancesco Majorino as a candidate, while the third pole of Matteo Renzi and Carlo Calenda supports Letizia Moratti, former vice president of the right-wing junta and former mayor of Milan. In Lazio – where the right has nominated the former president of the Italian Red Cross Francesco Rocca – the M5s presents itself in solitude, which supports the candidacy of the television presenter Donatella Bianchi. Pd and Third pole instead have candidate Alessio D’Amato, councilor for health in the council led by Zingaretti, who was also supported by the 5-star movement. Going into the reasons for this puzzle has now become a useless and idle exercise. Also because the internal divisions of each party complicate the picture.
While there is a passion for Byzantinisms, however, ideas continue to be lacking, and the ability to give life to any political initiative is lacking
The most striking case concerns the Pd. After the defeat in the political elections, the congressional phase for the renewal of the secretariat was opened. In recent weeks, the entire leadership group has been lost in a discussion on the rules of the congress, which apparently can change at any moment, often according to the needs of the leadership group itself, thus perpetuating the feeling that the Pd is a power management tool rather than a party open to society. While there is a passion for Byzantinisms, however, ideas continue to be lacking, and the ability to give life to any political initiative is lacking, a decidedly serious circumstance at the beginning of an electoral campaign.
The Third Pole and the M5s have long entered this void. Conte’s party is working to gain credit as a pivot of the entire center-left, to the detriment of the Democratic Party. The operation is successful. The polls show the M5s stably above the Pd by a few percentage points. However, the competition between Pd, M5s and Third pole was decisive for the defeat of the centre-left area in politics, and risks leading to the same result in these regional ones as well. Despite this, the Democratic Party now seems incapable of any reaction. The M5 seems more than ever interested in taking advantage of this opportunity to empty the electorate.
As for the Third Pole, it looks partly at the votes of the Democratic Party itself and partly at those of Forza Italia, and in the meantime on some issues – justice, but not only – it seems more in line with the right than with the opposition. In short, in the centre-left the parties go on trying mostly to cannibalize their respective electorates. Whether it’s out of cynicism, desperation or realpolitik, little changes: Giorgia Meloni couldn’t ask for anything better. But she too risks something. Especially in the Lazio elections.
In fact, it must make us forget mistakes such as the one committed in the last municipal elections in Rome, when the right nominated Enrico Michetti, often the protagonist of the news for his gaffes in the electoral campaign. And Rocca’s candidacy is not without risk. From his past, the already known story of a drug conviction remedied when he was very young has just re-emerged. Rocca responded to the controversy by speaking of it as a story of redemption, considering the turn his life took after that story. The problem is that now that story continues to occupy the pages of the newspapers for other reasons: partly due to Rocca’s stumbles in defending himself, partly because the former president of the CRI is attacked daily by his brother for some statements made on the causes that led him to approach drugs. In short, a half mess, and the feeling that everything could get out of control, just like it happened with Michetti. With the risk of agreeing with those who argue that the right lacks a ruling class and that Meloni is good at opposing but that he still has a lot to learn in the art of government.
However, Rocca’s candidacy above all meant the exclusion of Fabio Rampelli. Charismatic leader of the Roman right and of the so-called Gabbiani current, also widely listened to by a then young Meloni in the season of the historic section of the Roman right of Colle Oppio, Rampelli seemed a natural candidate. Yet his name has been dropped. He too was rejected in the last municipal elections in Rome, just as he was rejected from the list of eligible candidates for a ministerial post in the current government. A setback. Perhaps with this we also wanted to close a political season based on militancy rather than on power, an element that instead seems to characterize the current right of the so-called Atreju generation, of which Meloni herself is the central figure. The result is that in Fratelli d’Italia there is talk of an internal opposition again. And Meloni certainly can’t please Meloni.
However, Forza Italia and Matteo Salvini, leader of a party, the League, which for a long time has been losing consensus with the voters, are at risk more on the right in these elections. If the League goes badly again, he would be in trouble even in the event of Fontana’s re-election, and therefore of an electoral victory of the coalition with a candidate from his own party. And this is because, just as happens in the Democratic Party, Salvini’s problems derive more from relations with allies and from divisions within the party than from the consequences of the clash with his opponents.
To prove it there are a couple of recent episodes. First the defeat of the Salvini candidates in some provincial party congresses. Then the exit of some Lombard regional councilors from the Lega group to form a new group, the Northern Committee. Immediately expelled from the party, but defended by the old leader Umberto Bossi who had returned to make himself heard, the exiles had also threatened to support Letizia Moratti, candidate of the Third Pole, instead of Fontana. At least this threat eventually subsided, but this story is the signal that the construction of a real internal opposition based on a return to the Northern League’s original demands is not impossible. Just as it is not impossible to replace Salvini if the party does badly in the elections, both in absolute terms and in the relationship with the Brothers of Italy. And in what case the tremors could reach the government majority.