Calenda’s doubts about Renzi director of the Reformist

Talking about tensions or bad moods is probably exaggerated. But some perplexity about Matteo Renzi’s new role, about what he called an “unprecedented” situation, must have come to Carlo Calenda. “Congratulations on the prestigious new assignment,” he tweeted immediately upon hearing the news. Then some doubts about how the Tuscan senator will direct Il Riformista surfaced.

This can be understood from the words spoken by Calenda, on TV and in the newspapers. “He will have to be careful to clarify that this will not be a party newspaper”, he explained in an interview with La Stampa. “I wish him well, if that’s what he wants to do with his life, let alone.” The important thing is not to override, to avoid invasions of the field that could slow down the federative process that has been going on for about a year to put Action and Italy alive under a common roof. A path that, after the discreet electoral result in the September policies, has come in well below expectations in the various regions, in particular those in Lombardy. Meanwhile Renzi – who in the past few weeks had already announced in some way a disengagement, a break from politics and the “day by day” controversy – has taken another path, at least for a year.

A choice that, it seems, has not been discussed or shared. It is Calenda himself who lets it be understood: “Renzi called me before doing the press conference”. No reasoning of opportunities that perhaps the former mayoral candidate in Rome would have appreciated, if it is true, as he repeats almost daily that “the only thing that interests me is building a party”. And on the other hand, the sorties of the leader of Italia viva, outside of politics, are not too much appreciated by Calenda, who has never spared criticism, even harsh with respect to the activity of lecturer and consultant of his party colleague.

And that separation between fields, hoped for at the time of the Saudi renaissance, is being asked again today: “Information is a counter power. A very clear separation is needed to avoid conflicts of interest”, Calenda told La7, according to which “a senator also director of a newspaper is unpublished, because it is true that there have been other cases, but they were party newspapers”. And the Riformista will not be able to become the official organ of the centrists. “Renzi will have to be able to draw a line between his work as a senator and that of a newspaper editor. He owes it to his constituents and to the readers of the Riformista. It’s not a very simple thing.”