Renzi and the run-up to the votes of Forza Italia (which he has been chasing for a decade) – Corriere.it

The idea of ​​winning votes leaving Berlusconi’s camp is a real obsession for Matteo Renzi, which the founder of Italia viva has been cultivating for a decade. And which he still won’t give up on, despite the disappointing results of the general elections and the first round of administrative elections.
In August 2013, when Silvio Berlusconi was banned
from public offices
(to be later rehabilitated in 2018),
the then mayor of Florence began to dream of getting his hands on a treasure that was worth something like ten million votes.

Four months later, December 2013, Renzi became secretary of the Democratic Party
and in f
Prime Minister in 2014, after dethroning Enrico Letta
. Three months go by and the first big transfer takes place: the premier scores a record 40.8 percent of votes while Forza Italia stops at 16.8. Nine years have passed, in the meantime Berlusconi has returned to Parliament and Renzi the leader of a small party who at the Policies of 25 September 2022, in tandem with Action, stopped below 8%. In the first round of the municipal elections on 14 May it went even worse, with a 7% reached with difficulty only in Brescia and Siena. And yet, not even the disappointment for the missed double digits and the sensational divorce from Carlo Calenda made Matteo Renzi change his strategy: win the votes of the center that belonged to Berlusconi. Even if in the meantime the Knight’s field is very narrow and if a good part of Forza Italia’s executives have begun to look for a landing on the right. Proof of this is the 25% totaled in Politics by Giorgia Meloni, who launched a (successful) takeover bid on the center’s treasury of ten million votes.

Yet Renzi, who feels equally distant from Schlein and Meloni, does not give up. Now that he has snatched MP NaikeGroupioni and regional councilor Giulia Pigoni from Calenda, he is aiming straight for the 2024 European Championships as the last test on Italia Viva’s electoral health. The former prime minister’s strategy remains to attract Berlusconi voters who do not feel at ease in the radical right of the Brothers of Italy and to fish with his net for liberal democrats, popular, pro-European, socialist, or nostalgic for Christian Democracy. In addition, as we have seen, to the defectors of Action. The house of Italy lives small, but Renzi keeps doors and windows wide open and winks at Giorgia Meloni from the balcony, as he did on the constitutional reform
. Enrico Borghi, highly esteemed senator who said bye bye to Elly Schlein to move chez Renzi,
convinced that the left turn of the Democratic Party will lead to a sensational shift of reformist and moderate votes towards the center and towards the right.

In addition to Borghi and Marcucci, Beppe Fioroni, Carlo Cottarelli and Caterina Chinnici left the roof of the Nazarene. The farewell to the Democratic Party of the MEP who was candidate for president of Sicily and her adhesion to Forza Italia, for the Renzians, another proof that the space in the center is destined to expand. With a gimmick of his own, which sparked polemical comments and endless irony, Renzi took over the management of the small newspaper The Reformist and put his philosophy on paper: We will give space to reformist ideas, whether they come from centre-right administrators or from Forza Italia. It is no coincidence that the director in charge is the former blue parliamentarian Andrea Ruggieri.

The next step will be the (imminent) birth of the Italia viva groups in the Chamber and in the Senate. On 24 and 25 May, taking care not to make eye contact with that of a furious Calenda, Renzi will be at the Renew Europe event, which is a decisive moment for the leader to build an alternative to populists and sovereignists. And on June 10 it will be the turn of the national assembly of Italia viva in Naples, from whose stage the former premier will relaunch the offer of a roof for all those who do not want to surrender to melonism or Schleinism.

The Political Diary newsletter

If you want to stay updated on political news, subscribe to the newsletter “Political Diary”. It is dedicated to Corriere della Sera subscribers and arrives twice a week at 12. Just click here.