Pd, Bonaccini relaunches the majority vocation. But without a clear victory, I risk paralysis

The claim of the majority vocation

In short, what Bonaccini wants to revive is the party of the “majority vocation”, that is, a party that speaks to the whole country without delegating the representation of the popular classes to the left and of the moderate classes to the Third Pole. And one of the corollaries of the majority vocation is placing oneself at the center of the government alternative and therefore also expressing the candidate for prime minister of the coalition who will challenge the right in the next policies, as Carlo Cottarelli highlights when speaking to the Bonaccini audience: «I am here to explain why Stefano has the merit and ability to be the next prime minister. If the Pd has a majority vocation then he could be the best prime minister, and in his hands Italy could become the best country in Europe ».

The defense of the name “democratic”

The straightening of the bar also concerns the question of the name of the party, which the left (Giuseppe Provenzano, Andrea Orlando and also Bonaccini’s main competitor Elly Schlein) would like to change by introducing the word work. Apart from the fact that for Bonaccini we must speak rather of “jobs”, the point is that “it is increasingly evident that democracy does not enjoy a good rise: it is under attack from without and from within”. And therefore «we call ourselves the democratic party not because 16 years ago a minimum common denominator was sought, lexical even before values, among the founding cultures. We hadn’t arrived there by subtraction, but by vision: the intuition, that is, that democracy is the foundation of our idea of ​​society for the substantial aspect that has in itself the relationship between rulers and governed, between communities and institutions. For this Democratic Party is an important name: it is a strong idea of ​​values ​​and a project of society. The events of Capitol Hill and Brasilia are there to prove it, just like Putin’s aggression against Ukraine».

A speech from secretary in pectore

In Bonaccini’s speech, a speech as secretary in pectore who already looks at the work of opposition to the Meloni government and at the next national elections, the European ones of 2014, there is much more: the need to invest in health and education, with proposals to raise compulsory schooling to 18 and to eliminate the capped number for entry to medicine; but also the ecological transition which cannot ignore the safeguarding of jobs and the principle of reality, with the yes to regasification plants and waste-to-energy plants. And then the insistence on cutting the tax wedge as a way to make stable work more convenient for businesses and thus reduce the precariousness that kills young people.

The two parties that coexist in the Democratic Party and the risk of paralysis

But the political sense remains the attempt to put the bar back in the middle after the slide on the Giarrusso case on Saturday and after the abjuration of Renzi’s Jobs act in front of the Mirafiori gates on Friday: at the Talent Garden the governor of Emilia Romagna wanted to reconnect sentimentally and politically with all the reformists of the Democratic Party who support him: “We must be a truly reformist party: I don’t know what to do with a minority and maximalist left”. One wonders if Bonaccini, once he is elected secretary confirming the forecasts for the primaries of 26 February, will have the political strength to carry on his political line without provoking the uprising, and perhaps the split, of the left of the party . Because the real risk for the Democratic Party is paralysis, with the M5s and the Third Pole corroding the flanks.

Schlein presses: we will be the real surprise of these primaries

Much will depend on the gap that Bonaccini will have against Schlein: the bigger he is, the more his political line will have strength. You, the former leader of Occupy Pd, are betting everything on the vote of young people and women. «We will be the real surprise of these primaries, I can see it from the enthusiasm in people’s eyes, from the many new members who are registering, from the many young people who are approaching for the first time, from the associations that resurface: it is a reunification familiar», he says while touring Emilia Romagna for his countryside. And again: «We come from ancient values ​​but we want to renew this party, its method and also the ruling class. Bonaccini and I are very different from the point of view of the political perspective and also of the method we implement, but the best gift we can give to the Democratic Party is the promise that after the primaries we will work together”.