Pd primaries, from D’Alema to Emiliano. If supporters become a “burden” – Corriere.it

To each his own cross. a proverb that also applies in politics, as both Elly Schlein and Stefano Bonaccini know well. The leader of Occupy Pd, for example, has to bear the burden of a group of supporters who are not always to her liking. Being supported by Article 1 may be convenient for the votes that that party will bring to it in the primaries. But at the media level you have to pay the pawn with a cumbersome presence like Massimo D’Alema. And the problem is not solved by the fact that the former DS leader seems to intend to place his i with the dem, keeping his hands free while waiting to prepare the big red thing with Giuseppe Conte. And yesterday’s statement by the former DS leader doesn’t even solve it. The one in which he says he cannot respond to the ongoing debate in the Democratic Party, because, verbatim, I have been retired for 7 years. Yes, because everyone knows that, although D’Alema is no longer active in politics, he is still capable of giving the line to Article 1.

After all, as the former DS secretary often liked to say, jokingly (but up to a certain point): Head of the table where I sit. And even if formally D’Alema does not have offices in Speranza’s party, it was he, in a toast via zoom of Article 1, at the end of 2021, who gave the go-ahead for the return of the defectors to the Democratic Party: A necessary recomposition. It is therefore no coincidence that one of his own men, the general secretary of the ItalianiEuropei Foundation, Mario Hubler, was included by Enrico Letta in the committee of wise men in charge of writing the 2023 version of the Democratic Party’s manifesto of values.

So D’Alema. But not only. Because there are also other supporters of Schlein of Article 1 who are giving the candidate for the dem secretariat some problems. Arturo Scotto, for example, who again yesterday returned to the theme of changing the name of the Democratic Party (on which Schlein held back on Sunday). A battle, this one, which makes Enrico Borghi say: as if Puerto Rico set as a condition to enter the US that they change their name. On the other hand, Schlein’s relations with Dario Franceschini are calm, who intelligently prefers to remain in the shadows. Lukewarm those with Andrea Orlando.

But even Bonaccini has his fish to fry. So far the cumbersome presence of Vincenzo De Luca and Michele Emiliano in the ranks of his supporters hasn’t created too many problems for him. He didn’t even have to recite the formula of the sacred promise that the governor of Puglia demanded from the candidate he was about to support: Never alliances with Calenda and Renzi. However, many of Bonaccini’s loyalists feared that the president of Emilia-Romagna would eventually lose patience and not make an agreement with Emiliano. If at this stage the powerful governors of the South have not placed too many conditions on the candidate for the secretariat because they reserve the right to do so after the primaries. These are also the reasons that prompted Schlein and Bonaccini to make a mutual promise: the loser, whoever he is, will collaborate with the winner. This will allow those who assume the leadership of the Democratic Party to be able to escape the embrace of bulky supporters.