Pd primaries, online voting is against the wall. Letta tries to avoid disruption- Corriere.it

The insistence with which Elly Schlein continues to ask for online voting, despite the fact that the other candidates for the secretariat are against it, has set off an alarm bell for the Democratic Party. For a week, his supporters have been talking about the possibility of presenting an agenda in the direction of Wednesday to have their proposal voted on, even though they know that it will rock the dem and that it will not pass in any case. A party already torn apart, given a decline in the polls (swg Tuesday even gave him the 14%) does not need further divisions, said Enrico Letta and his collaborators. But what worries most of the leaders of the Democratic Party is the drift that seems to prefigure this insistence, because, this is their fear, it could be preparatory to a non-acceptance of the gazebo vote in the event of Stefano Bonaccini’s victory, and to a new, painful, split .

Whether these fears of many are founded or not, Letta intends in any case to avoid divisions and dramatizations in the direction that would harm the Democratic Party. For this reason, after a meeting of the Sherpas of the four candidates for the secretariat with the representatives of the congressional commission had run aground in the morning on the point of the online vote, he decided to intervene. And he called Bonaccini (who was the first to receive the call from the outgoing leader), Schlein, De Micheli and Cuperlo. The rules cannot be changed a month before the primaries, Letta underlined in those phone calls. And again: I cannot support changes that are not shared by all the candidates. No forcing or lacerations. You need a sense of responsibility. A speech, that of Letta, which Bonaccini found more than in agreement: Changing the rules in the race is not correct. We must not split the Democratic Party but relaunch it, the governor replied to the outgoing secretary. And Alexander Alfierispokesman for the reformist Base, the current of Lorenzo Guerini, who supports the candidacy of the president of Emilia-Romagna, explains: We are for real primaries. Seats and gazebos spread throughout the territories. If we have to rebuild the Democratic Party, we need to get people out of the house, look them in the eye, talk to each other, even take a few insults… Only in this way can we try to start afresh.

Of the same opinion Paula DeMicheli: We have to vote in the gazebos to meet and discuss, says the former minister. Who reiterated his no to online voting to Letta, explaining to him: We cannot always be subordinate to anyone. But Alexander Zan, a supporter of Schlein of the opposite opinion: There can be no fear towards a tool that favors participation. And in fact the former vice president of Emilia-Romagna, in his telephone conversation with Letta, does not back down an inch: For me, online voting is a precondition, because we must widen participation, not lock ourselves away.

Schlein’s intransigence on this point stalled the second meeting of the Sherpas, which was adjourned at around eight in the evening and resumed this morning. Shortly after, Bonaccini’s committee issued a harsh note: The rules of our congress have already been changed to allow those who were not from the Democratic Party to participate. The only hypothesis that the party could be split up in order to change them again while the congress is already underway, rather than discussing how to relaunch it, would be unfortunate. To Marco Meloni, coordinator of the secretariat, today, the arduous task of finding a unitary solution before the management. The candidates have the burden of speaking to each other during the night to facilitate Meloni’s work.