Pd, nervousness about the “invasion” of the Dalemians – Corriere.it

It will be because the «ex», i.e. the defectors of Article 1, are back. It will be for the date chosen (unknowingly) by the outgoing secretary, January 21, that is the day on which, 102 years ago, the communist party was born. The fact is that yesterday, in the audience of the National Assembly of the Democratic Party, there was a certain amount of disquiet.

When Roberto Speranza took the floor and questioned the primaries, which of the Democratic Party are the founding act, someone whispered: “It looks like the invasion of the body snatchers”. From the homonymous film by Don Siegel, the one in which extraterrestrials replace the inhabitants of a Californian town. The comparison then passed from mouth to mouth, until it reached the ears of Lorenzo Guerini, who ironically replied to those who made it: “The body snatchers always lose”.

But movies aside, there was a lot of nostalgia in the Auditorium Antonianum, the venue of that meeting. The former Dalemian Livia Turco welcomed the return of the defectors with emotion. And she took the floor, something she hadn’t done for years, precisely from the split: “I am very happy that those comrades who have gone away are here”. And earlier it was Arturo Scotto, a great fan of Elly Schlein, as well as a leading executive of Article 1, who caused some unease in the reformist area of ​​the Democratic Party. Above all when he criticized NATO, which “risks questioning Italy’s strategic autonomy”, or when, while condemning the Russian invasion, he affirmed: “I say this very frankly, the left cannot accept that in front the diplomatic instrument is withdrawn from war, peace is a policy, not something for beautiful souls». Gianni Cuperlo had to intervene shortly after, who while certainly not belonging to the reformist wing of the dem, however reiterated the line of the Democratic Party: “If Russia lays down its arms, it will stop the war, if Ukraine lays down its arms, it will cease to exist Ukraine”.

So, the suspicion that was circulating yesterday was that behind the entry of Article 1 there is a drawing by Massimo D’Alema. To tell the truth, multiple operations are attributed to the former leader of the DS, of which he is not always the inspirer. But the words of Peppe Provenzano, who quoted Sun Tzu, fueled the doubts: D’Alema very often resorted in his speeches to the maxims of the author of theArt of Warof which he made annotated readings with his staff.

The suspicion is that Article 1 now points to the victory of Schlein to recover the Democratic Party, or, alternatively, to its honorable defeat (which corresponds to the threshold of 40-45%) to condition Stefano Bonaccini’s moves. And the request for a name change, advanced by Provenzano and advocated by Andrea Orlando, or the recourse to the use of the members’ referendum, invoked from the stage by Schlein, would be part of this strategy of conditioning and wearing down the future secretary. It is therefore no coincidence that in his speech Bonaccini, despite having words of “affection” towards Speranza, wanted to underline that if the renewal of the Democratic Party was “limited” to the entry of Article 1 “it would be very little”; or if he was keen to underline that he had “never found a member or a voter who asked me to change the name of the Democratic Party”.