Renzi-Nardella, what’s behind the Florentine feud. “He told me that…” rags are flying

A fight in Florentine sauce with the Nazarene in the background. This is what is happening these days between the leader of Italia Viva, Matteo Renzi, and the mayor of Florence, Dario Nardella, who is a more active exponent of the Democratic Party than ever and who in the presidency of the Tuscan capital has replaced the ‘scrapper ‘, when he left Palazzo Vecchio for Palazzo Chigi. Initial cause of dispute over the fines that fell on Florence’s citizens due to state-of-the-art speed cameras. But according to Renzi there would be more. And today, during a press conference right outside the Palazzo Vecchio, the former prime minister argued that the real reason Nardella would want to fight him was his ambition to become Democratic Party secretary.

“I don’t need to argue with Dario Nardella, first because I don’t argue with friends, then because I don’t have political goals that make me want to argue with him,” Renzi began in front of microphones and cameras. “Obviously,” he added, “he needs to argue with me, and he clearly told me the other day when he came to my house to talk to me. He needs to argue with me for a very simple reason, because if someone argues with Renzi at least in the Democratic Party they make him national secretary.” .

And between the two, linked by a friendship that until now had also overcome Renziano’s attachment to the Democratic Party unscathed, this endorsement, on the contrary, could sanction the rupture. In reality, some cracks had already appeared in the months of the election campaign, when the leader of Italia Viva had ‘beaten’ his former deputy mayor telling him, without mincing words, that he would have done better to focus on his commitment as mayor. than in the race for the secretariat of the Pd. Nardella, for his part, never openly used words of defiance against Renzi, limiting himself to claiming the goodness of choosing to remain in the Democratic Party. Also in the case of the fines, he entrusted the answer to the traffic councilor Stefano Giorgetti.

The former mayor, however, did not let the issue of fines pass into the background and today reiterated: simply the need to earn money. You cannot govern with an attitude in which the citizen, especially in a moment of crisis like this, works like an ATM for the city”. Then he also used harsh words to the traffic commissioner. “I would never have given this press conference if councilor Stefano Giorgetti, another miracle worker for Renzismo, hadn’t said ‘we are for road safety’. No! Road safety is done with money, make Giorgetti! noise, they know that too” .

If he defined Giorgetti as a “miracle of Renzismo”, Renzi reserved another impulse for Nardella. “To be mayor of Florence – said the leader of Italia Viva – you need to have a very strong person who pushes you, as happened in Nardella: it happened to him when I decided to send Saccardi to the Region, Giani to the Region and Deputy Mayor It was a time when I could pay because I had 40% in the country and 60% in Florence and I was the mayor. Neither Nardella nor Renzi will decide the next mayor: the citizens will decide”. Faced with such statements, some might think that even in Florence and in the Tuscan region the alliance between the Democratic Party and IV is doomed. A scenario that, however, the former prime minister ruled out. “Effects on the regional and municipal council of Florence? Zero for me”. Together again, but after the Democratic Party Congress the scenario may change.