“When they offered me a meeting in via delle Botteghe Oscure, I immediately said yes.” Claudio Mancini, a former «Young Turk», a man who has always been very close to Mayor Gualtieri, manages to elicit a smile, but the mood of the audience is sepia. It is a Democratic Party hit by the earthquake that Matteo Ricci convened yesterday afternoon at the Teatro dei Ginnasi inviting Stefano Bonaccini. Title: “Popular Left”. On the opposite sidewalk is the historic headquarters, the last symbol that clings to. And it doesn’t matter if, in the meantime, the former PCI headquarters changed its intended use. We are inside the perimeter of the Ztl, the centrifugal force, the whirlpool in which the dem who are now in danger of drowning in the case of Qatar ended up. To consecrate their alliance, the mayor of Pesaro, Ricci, and the president of the Emilia-Romagna region, Bonaccini, candidate for the party’s secretariat, chose a suggestive place. But few are seen in the theater of Romans and big names: Lorenza Bonaccorsi, president of the 1st City Council, deputy Andrea Casu, councilor Riccardo Corbucci, Giulio Bugarini, head of Gualtieri’s secretariat and Giulia Tempesta, also councilor of the Capitol who presents from stage. There are 117 seats and some are empty. Special guests local administrators, the “healthy party”, exhibited in the front row.
However, it is enough for MEP Achilli Variati to launch an invitation “not to accept gifts” to evoke the stony guest that hangs over the convention: “That bag full of money from Qatargate that scratched the clean image of so many mayors who love sobriety », Variati is indignant. The applause reserved for Sinisa Mihajlovic heats up the theater, then it is the leader’s turn. “The moral question must come back to the fore – says Bonaccini – but be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. We owe that to the great Most of the affiliates, voters, militants, administrators, are respectable, honest people. But what we saw, even if it is only one, is stomach-turning and must tell us that we must be adamant. In every family there are those who can be wrong, but there must be antibodies ».
It would take “another existential Seltzer”, as Woody Allen would say, to raise the morale of the dem troops. Michele Emiliano tries to connect remotely: «Bonaccini embodies a desire for redemption and is an example of good governance – the president of the Puglia region takes sides -. Many of us felt alone, the party was a foreign entity, far from our problems”. On the 22nd of December, there will be a summit at Nazareno between candidates and big names. Enrico Letta was also present. The games begin.
Source: IL Tempo
Emma Fitzgerald is an accomplished political journalist and author at The Nation View. With a background in political science and international relations, she has a deep understanding of the political landscape and the forces that shape it.
