Schlein admits the “clear defeat”. For the Democratic Party, he is the crux of the moderate vote

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“A clear defeat”. At the end of an endless secretariat of the Democratic Party, while the results of the ballots arrive from all over Italy, Elly Schlein does not mince words. Because if these municipals were to be the first confrontation-clash between the two female leaders of Italian politics, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and precisely the new secretary of the Democratic Party, the verdict is clear: the defeat belongs entirely to the latter. The ballots in the big cities, fought once again with bare hands by the dem given the absence of agreements and even endorsements from Giuseppe Conte’s M5s, are in fact a real debacle: the loss of a red stronghold in particular burns like Ancona. But the emblem of defeat is perhaps in Tuscany, where the dem candidates fail to win either in Pisa, where the president of the provincial ACLI Paolo Martinelli was supported by the M5s, or in Siena or Massa. A trend also confirmed by the first round in the Islands, with the clear victory in the first round of the center-right in Sicilian cities such as Catania and Ragusa.

An unfortunate slogan

Yet “enough to lose” was the slogan with which the Schleinian Emiliano Fossi had conquered the regional secretariat in Tuscany. An unfortunate slogan, given the results in the provincial capital cities of his region and also given the results in the same city of Fossi, Campo Bisenzio, 50 thousand inhabitants, a municipality on the outskirts of Florence that has always been administered by the Democratic Party: the winner is a surprise Andrea Tagliaferri, man of Nicola Fratoianni’s Left in alliance with the M5s. “Proof that the original always trumps the copy” for the dem reformists. It is safe to bet that they will do battle in the next few weeks, accusing the shifting of the party axis to the left.

The Pisa case

“It is certain – comments a reformist Base executive – that if you close yourself in the perimeter of the left you risk that the center will eat it up from the right”. Exactly what happened in Pisa, where the “pacifist” candidate chosen by Pd and M5s did not convince the centrists of the Third Pole at all: according to the analysis of the flows of the Cattaneo Institute, many voters of Azione and Italia Viva in the first round the center-right mayor Michele Conti voted directly.

Victory in Vicenza

Nor is the new dem secretary too consoled by the victory – solitary and precisely for this reason exceptional – of the 33-year-old Giacomo Possamai in Vicenza, snatched from the center-right: an entirely civic candidacy, also supported by the Third Pole, which also worked because the young new mayor never wanted Schlein and other national leaders on stage at his rallies. A victory more “despite” than “with”.

Honeymoon already over?

Is the honeymoon of center-left voters with Schlein already over three months before the dem primaries? Too soon to say, and it should in any case be emphasized that the Democratic Party remains the first party in most of the big cities to vote. But if the Democratic Party still enjoys moderate health in the territories and according to polls also in the country (it is around 21% when in the long pre-congress transition it had reached 16%), Schlein’s real problem is and will be that of alliances. At least until the European elections of 2024, the pentastellato leader Giuseppe Conte will behave more like an opponent than a possible ally, given that he aims to fish in the same electoral pool as Schlienian Pd and in addition to collect the votes of that variously “pacifist” left-wing worlds ” and against sending weapons to Ukraine. As for the third pole, the alliance with the Democratic Party appears possible only where there is no M5s. The three oppositions, which added together today would still be the relative majority of the country at national level, are in fact impermeable to each other. «You can’t win alone – Schlein admits -. We must rebuild an alternative and credible camp to the right”.

political positioning

Yet it’s not just a question of political alchemy in building alliances, there is an obvious problem of political positioning. If betting everything on social issues, on the fight against precariousness and on civil rights can immediately serve to regroup the dem electorate in view of next year’s European elections, when we will vote with the proportional system, the strategy does not seem able to work in the prospect of political elections, which are won as in the Municipalities by convincing the voters of the others and therefore the moderate voters.

No alternative government

The consequence, positive for Meloni and for the centre-right, is the absence – in fact – of a real government alternative. Hence the sober words of the prime minister: «A result that encourages us to go ahead and do even better. We have obtained important confirmations and some victories that could be defined as historic, such as in Ancona, confirming the fact that strongholds no longer exist and that citizens know how to make their choices by evaluating programs and people». This time, the center-right has combined the cohesion of the coalition with the ability to select candidates well for administrative elections, once the prerogative of the center-left. As the director of Cattaneo Salvatore Vassallo points out: «There is a growing expertise in the choice of candidates: in the past they have made mistakes, like in Rome in 2021, but in this round they have all chosen valid candidates. And this ability derives from the organizational infrastructure of FdI, a party that perhaps has a small but professional network”. All factors that make the constitutionalist and former parliamentarian of the Pd Stefano Ceccanti say, with a bitter quip, that “now the center-right can avoid to change the law on ballots in the Municipalities: all the same wins… The votes are added to the ballot only if there is a credible common horizon of government».

What is certain is that at least until the European elections, the government can rest assured, and it is to be believed that there will be an acceleration on reforms considered to be identity-related such as that of presidentialism (i.e. the direct election of the prime minister) in which Meloni has invested a lot. And after the European elections, if the centre-right wind is confirmed in Italy and in Europe, the challenge will be to conquer the governance of the Union with an alliance between the EPP and the conservatives, led by Meloni.

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