Because Calenda’s no to Leopolda is another step towards breaking up the Third Pole

They described it as all about money, a clash of irreconcilable characters, an imbalance of visions. But perhaps the rupture that is taking place in the Third Pole is also simply a matter of symbols. Because in the age of liquid politics, of light parties, of volatile votes, we know what function rituals and places and their display have: more often than not they are everything, they replace the very identity of a political force.

So while yesterday afternoon Charles Calenda convened the political committee that seats the main exponents of Action and Italia viva at the same table, and at the same time Matteo Renzi nominated the former Berlusconi deputy Andrea Ruggieri driving the Reformist as director in charge, there was one of the most irreparable rifts between the two. Of those that are difficult not to prelude goodbye and thank you.

“No more Leopolda“, Calenda told the Renzians during the meeting. “. Except that for the universe that gravitates around the former Florentine prime minister, it’s not exactly a light-hearted transition. And there is one detail that confirms it. Because regardless of how the path towards unitary subject, which also yesterday saw the reaffirmation of next October as the horizon, Renzi would be thinking of organizing a new edition, it would be the twelfth, of the event organized in the historic Porta al Prato station in Florence. The date would be that of March 2024. But it is evident that if Leopolda continues to exist, the elephant in the room is the persistence of Italia viva. Hence Calenda’s suspicions that the ally is playing a double game to deceive him and steal his party.

On the Leopolda there is a whole epic that we can summarize in a few bars. She was born in 2010 at the time of Renzi mayor of Florence, she has always represented the call to mobilize for the Renzi people. At least a couple of books have been written about it. An American-style convention with music by Imagine Dragons and Jovanotti blaring, interspersed with speeches between the political and the motivational. All those who shared a stretch of road with Renzi have been there, from Pippo Civati ​​to Teresa Bellanova. Renzi didn’t give up even when he was at Palazzo Chigi. His final speech was always on Sunday, at lunchtime, before Tg1. Last year there was no way to organize it: the government crisis and the call to the polls in September were too sudden. It was also a cross and a delight for the former prime minister. Given that the famous Open investigation of the Florence prosecutor’s office took hold of Leopolda.

It is understandable why for the “simple senator from Scandicci” it represents a sort of curtain that has come down forever, and with ways and timing that he had not calculated. Because it’s okay to slip away, leave the role of leader to Calenda. But why should I lose this space of (restricted) people, this sentimental connection with my people? These are the thoughts that animate him in these hours. Even on the other conditions posed by Calenda – including the prohibition of conflict of interest which would prevent him from holding new positions in the new party if he continued with the activity of lecturer around the world (above all Arab) -, Renzi had given his approval.

In the end perhaps it is more this, more than the money, the 200 thousand euros today and the 70 per cent of the 2×1000 then, the contestability of the leadership (Raffaella Paita and Luigi Marattin warmed up) to have convinced Renzi that the marriage with Calenda is only s’adda do by force. “Also because it takes me a minute to create an autonomous group in the Senate“. And to organize a new Leopolda, at that point, even less.