Bersani, Casini and Vendola have put their cards on the table, foreshadowing a possible convergence rather than an alliance, to give our country a political government after the elections. A convergence and not an a priori alliance, therefore. The three seem to agree on one point: the Pd and SEL will try to broaden the field of progressives, the UDC to strengthen and reorganize the field of moderates. Then, after the April vote, convergence will be sought to form the majority and the government. Vast program in merit, but impeccable from an organizational point of view.
At the moment the one that could have the biggest problems is Vendola. Within Sel there is no lack of resistance, even psychological, to the idea of a government alliance with the centre. But governments and majorities are also made with numbers. And Vendola Bersani and Casini have enough political experience to know this and take it into account. Thus, in the face of the protests of part of his party base, which manifested themselves on the network, immediately after the news of the possible convergence, Vendola reacted by giving Casini the condition of setting aside neoliberal temptations. A condition that is anything but unachievable, since the world of Catholic Democrats (whether with the DC or with the UDC) has never seemed particularly sensitive towards Thatcherism and Bushism in our country.
In turn, Bersani and Casini have divided their respective fields of action: the first will be concerned with the progressive camp, the second with that of putting the moderates back together, after the failure of Berlusconi. In short, the Pd will seek an alliance with Sel (and the methods will largely depend on what the new electoral law will be like), the UDC will seek to recover that centrist electorate who, (as many polls tell us) are no longer attracted by what remains of the PDL.
Its Casini he explained in an interview with Corriere della sera, he was keen to recall: “for some time in Europe I have supported the collaboration of the great reformist socialist and pro-European popular families. A field of the latter (of the popular Europeans) in which Berlusconi has always found himself uncomfortable as demonstrated by recent episodes, even on the occasion of summits with the Germans and the French, a reason why Casini has very little to fear from those who, like some exponent of the Pdl, threatens to ask for its marginalization in the Ppe. In turn, Bersani, in another interview, explained that "after Monti it is no longer the time for broad understandings", and that possible convergence with the moderates could bring politics back to the helm of the country.
Now, in the coming months, we will see, with the continuation of the caretaker government, whether Casini Bersani and Vendola will be able to do what (in the early 60s, following the tragic experience of the Tambroni government) the DC of Moro and Fanfani succeeded, at the Psi of Nenni, and to the PSDI and the PRI of Saragat and La Malfa: create the conditions for a centre-left majority. Of course, the surrounding political conditions are very different. There are far fewer problems of international politics. There is no longer either the PCI or the Warsaw pact. And that certainly makes things easier. But at the same time there is the economic-financial crisis and the reforms to be made will concern, in addition to the reduction of inequalities, also the containment of costs and public spending, precisely so as not to screw up the recovery requested of us by Europe, and which the Monti government has concretely launched and will continue to pursue until the electoral deadline.
And here it arises a significant political problem for the hypothetical centre-left majority. It absolutely must not represent a solution of continuity from the path with which the caretaker government had to reassure Europe. It would certainly have a great impact and political significance, if, as Franco Locatelli wrote in this masthead, in the hypothetical Bersani government, the ancestral senator Mario Monti could be placed in the Economy. After all, something similar happened with Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. Who, after being Prime Minister and before becoming President of the Republic, played a decisive part, as Treasury Minister in Prodi's centre-left government, in bringing Italy into the single European currency. A story that was good for Italy and that could repeat itself.
