It's quick to sing victory. According to the hysterical group leader of Forza Italia deputies, Renato Brunetta, Matteo Renzi should pack his bags and the future would reserve only magnificent fortunes for the centre-right. THE regional results tell a very different reality:
1) The fratricidal divisions on the left, the baffling ambush of Bindi and the price paid on the altar of reforms (popular banks and school first of all) stop Matteo Renzi's electoral push the Democratic Party takes home 5 out of 7 Regions, loses Liguria, struggles in Umbria, loses in Veneto but conquers Campania albeit in the midst of a thousand obstacles: the stability of the Government is not at stake.
2) Forza Italia surprises Liguria but collapses in all other regions and even ranks fourth on a national scale, being overtaken by the League and Grillo and giving shape to Silvio Berlusconi's worst nightmares.
3) If the regional results are confirmed in the next political elections, the Pd will go to the ballot, by virtue of the Italicum, which confirms itself as the first party at national level with 23,7%, and – this is the novelty of greater importance to deal with -, not the center-right but the Grillo's 5 Star Movement.
That said, and given that dreams and the perception of the vote are one thing and reality is another, nothing will be the same again after yesterday's regional elections. It will not be for Matteo Renzi who has personally experienced that the battle to change Italy is not, as they once said, a gala lunch, but a very tough fight where the interests affected by the reforms and the friendly fire of the dem minority , who do not resign themselves to his leadership and dream of revenge, have no intention of giving him any discounts but aim to make his life increasingly difficult.
It is true that the government remains stable and currently has no alternatives, but two warnings come from Sunday's vote, one more important than the other: 1) far from stopping as conservatives of all races dream, the battle to change Italy and to take it definitively out of the tunnel must make a leap in quality, except for getting swamped; 2) without a profound reform of the Democratic Party, which scraps the old national and local ruling classes and establishes the elementary principle of democracy according to which whoever wins the congresses has the right to apply his line in society and in the elected assemblies, Renzi and his politics of reforms will not go far. The modernization of the country and the transformation of the Democratic Party are two sides of the same coin.
Nothing will be the same again not even for the center-right. The League advances on the wave of populism and Forza Italia sinks in the wake of internal divisions but a few questions remain: 1) what will be the line of the centre-right in view of the next policies? The extremist and anti-European one of Matteo Salvini or the more moderate but lacking enamel (apart from Liguria) of Forza Italia? 2) How does the center-right think of facing Grillo's advance and what will it do if the M5S goes to the ballot, except for trying an improbable unitary list (from Berlusconi to Salvini) of the centre-right?
Even for the M5S nothing will be the same again: in politics it's not like at the Olympics and if you don't win, sooner or later the simple participation leaves the time it finds. Grillo and his friends will have to ask themselves how they intend to prepare for the ballot: only by fueling the protest or by starting to weave the web to find alliances or move votes from the Democratic Party, the right and abstention towards their own shores? And consequently the whole political and parliamentary strategy of the M5S will have to be revisited.
You can say all you want about theItalicum but with the new electoral law today's sad show will not be repeated so everyone won the elections even if they took them with thrashing. With the Italicum it will be known immediately who has really won and who will govern for five years and who will have to accommodate the opposition. But before arriving at the next political elections there is still a long way to go and there will be some good ones.
