The pot on low heat is about to reach the right temperature. It’s the technique of boiling the frog, an unorthodox metaphor that is sometimes also used in politics. In practice, the state of mind of Andrea Orlando, left to decay in Liguria, in the total silence of Rome. Even the secretary of the Democratic Party, on vacation, forgot to leave instructions on the fate of her party colleague, who has been waiting for two months for the green light to run for the succession of Giovanni Toti. An imprimatur that naturally never arrived. Thus, the former minister had to suffer the shame of finding himself flanked by Giuseppe Conte’s man (and also by the former grillino Nicola Morra), the violinist senator Luca Pirondini, put on the field by the M5S to make his race more difficult, to exhaust him and force him to give up. For Andrea Orlando, the limit is full: «my invitation is to not waste precious time suggesting solutions and concrete proposals to the Ligurians and to the economic and social system of the region. As far as my availability is concerned, it is a card on the coalition’s table – says Daveto de Santo Stefano – if it does not help it should be withdrawn and another one should be verified, which, if it unites more, I am available to support. The important thing is to hurry”, concepts that he reiterates to everyone.
A formally polite way of (poorly) hiding real anger: against Elly Schlein, of course, against her party, against allies considered vacillating and unreliable. Orlando has no more time to dedicate a week to deciding whether to take it or leave it, the affront is already heavy enough. In short, returning to Nazareno will not be very easy for the leader, she will have to lock herself in a room with Conte, and find a way out of the Campo Marzio diktat: it is impossible to have three Democratic candidates for the three regions that will vote, Emilia Romagna and Umbria, as well as Liguria. And this time the former Prime Minister demands concrete “compensation” for giving up his protégé, he asks for crucial positions in the regional organization chart, no more “bad checks”, no more verbal commitments will be accepted. Another possibility, equally concrete at this moment, is that the search for a third candidate will begin, with the consequent sacrifice of the great Democratic Party. A scenario already seen many times during the muscular confrontations between the DEM and the 5 Star Movement.
Ferruccio Sansa, the Fatto Quotidiano journalist defeated by Toti in 2020, was also impatient: “We wasted months without discussing programs and ideas and without choosing a candidate, but talking about strategies and chatter,” he vents on social media, “while perhaps someone was hoping to gain political space by discussing Renzi, a party that almost all the center-left forces said they didn’t want and that in Genoa is with Bucci and that in the Region they would like to be with the center-left.” Matteo Renzi, on the other hand, is the other missing piece. The leader of Italy, who, although willing to sacrifice his historic partnership with the mayor of Genoa, continues to oppose it. Even Giuseppe Conte, in Sunday’s interview with Repubblica, reiterates: “To get two to three percent of the vote, all the M5S voters and also a good part of the Democratic Party voters would be forced to flee. Many stop me in the street and beg me not to bring Renzi to the party.” board. They fear his demolition capacity; he has always stood out for bringing down governments rather than making them last. Not to mention the times he voted with the right in Parliament.” A position that seems unshakable is essentially shared by the Bonelli Fratoianni duo. In short, with problem after problem for Elly Schlein, squaring the circle will not be easy. Will it be enough to hide Renzi, Calenda and a few other centrists in an unnamed list? And how will he end up in Liguria with the ‘toad’?
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.
