The 20 June the Democratic Party plays another historic game, perhaps not comparable to that of 1976, when the PCI dreamed of overtaking the DC in the political elections, but in any case an important challenge, which will have repercussions on the national party, on its leadership group, on the alliances that they will want to tighten up in the near future.
In just over a month, in Bologna, there will be the centre-left primaries for the race for mayor of the capital and the official candidate of the Democratic Party, Matteo Lepore, councilor in Virginio Merola's council for two mandates, will have to deal with the strong-willed and enterprising Isabella Conti, first citizen of San Lazzaro, where she worked well and courageously, also fighting against the overbuilding of the Coops and creating an innovative kindergartens. Conti, as a candidate, threw the classic stone into the pond, but instead of small circles of water she is creating a tidal wave.
A series of prominent figures in the party have already spoken out in favor of the young woman from Italia Viva, who is presenting herself in Bologna as an independent, and yesterday also arrived the endorsement of Elisabetta Gualmini, former vice president of the Emilia-Romagna Region and now a European parliamentarian with the Pd license plate. Many affinities bind the two women, starting from the imprint left by Matteo Renzi in their political career, but they are also united by the ability to look beyond the fence and to speak to that electorate of the center that the partnership with the 5 stars could push away .
Gualmini took sides yesterday, during an interview with the broadcaster Ètv: "I could have stood at the window - she said - my name was also mentioned as a candidate, but my political figure is freedom and in this choice I want to put all myself". Isabella's “is a candidacy that unites the center-left against the populist right. If we want to beat the right we need a transversal figure ". And again: “There are perhaps two different ideas behind the two candidacies that we are lucky enough to have. Lepore offers a more left-wing proposal, which from the Democratic Party looks only to the left. Instead I find myself in a center-left that one day will have to be wider, transversal, plural and which also includes those more moderate people who can identify with a large democratic and plural party such as the Democratic Party".
Around the corner, for a party that takes refuge in itself, there is the risk of Guazzaloca, the butcher who became mayor by wresting Palazzo d'Accursio from the left for the first time since the end of the war. On this occasion, however, the challenge is entirely within the same line-up. And the malaise is not lacking. The head of local authorities of the Pd Francesco Boccia said that "Lepore and Pd-M5S will certainly win the primaries together in the first round". The secretary of the Bolognese Democratic Party, Luigi Tosiani, in an interview with the Corriere di Bologna invited the members to join forces for the commissioner. “If the M5S wins, the Democratic Party will come out stronger. In this campaign it is necessary to build the conditions to unite and not destroy. I'll leave that to others." We will see.
For its part, Isabella Conti, on the strength of a wide-ranging political discourse and which can meet with many consensuses, is not so intimidated: "The primaries choose the candidate with a high project, center-left values and the ability to defeat the right". For the rest "we are all brothers and all on the same team".
