In the affair of the minority of the Pd two questions are intertwined: one of method and one of merit. That of method is soon said. In no party of the First and Second Republics (and it will probably be the same in the third) it was allowed to push dissent to the point of not voting confidence in one's own Government. There was and there will always be a limit beyond which there is only abandonment (as it was in my case in '93 when Occhetto and D'Alema decided to withdraw the ministers from the Ciampi government, causing it to fall shortly after) or the split.
It is a question of loyalty but also of correctness towards members and voters. The new fact today, compared to the past is, if anything, that this phenomenon has assumed an endemic character. While before it was an exception and was linked to major historical events such as: the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 56, the birth of the center left or the transformation of the PCI after the fall of the Berlin wall. Today it seems to be the rule and it is mostly fueled by personal quarrels, spite and sometimes grudges. The reason for this lies in the fragmentation (in the chalking the great historian of fascism De Felice would have said) of the political system which, in turn, is a consequence of the unresolved institutional crisis.
In fact, we are still within the infinite transition that from the parliamentary republic, founded on parties and which today is irreparably in crisis, should lead us to a semi-presidential type republic founded on a more rigorous separation of powers but also on a more effective role of 'executive. While the corporate system exposed to international competition and the Executive which is accountable to citizens have tried and are trying to adapt to this need, the rest of the institutions and the system of parties and representations (intermediate bodies) are instead struggling. The introduction of a new institutional structure, if and when it occurs, will also outline the role of parties and other bodies and will better define both their institutional responsibilities and rules of conduct. In the meantime we just have to navigate on sight and rely on the national sense of responsibility of the leading groups. Let's hope so!
The most important question, however, is that of merit. The minority of the Democratic Party does not criticize Renzi because he goes too fast or because he does not take their proposals seriously. He criticizes him because in their opinion Renzi's are not reforms but counter-reforms. In the case of the electoral law and the reform of the Senate, they are something worse and much more serious than a counter-reform: they are a threat to democracy (Bersani). Exactly what Enrico Berlinguer said at the beginning of the 80s about the great institutional reform proposed by the PSI and Craxi: “… not a solution to the Italian crisis but a serious threat to our democracy!“. And this is the real point at issue.
The reform of the labor market with the cancellation of the art. 18; that of the school inspired by the criteria of autonomy, responsibility and merit; the electoral law that intends to favor bipartisanship and the reform of the Senate that puts an end to perfect bicameralism represent, each in its own sphere, the pure and simple reversal of the approach that, historically, first the PCI and then the various PDS, DS and PD have had towards these problems. An intolerable slap for the heirs of the Company! Whose heirs cannot and will not be able to truly call themselves reformers if they do not truly break with this legacy.
The truth is that from the 80s onwards, the company (however named) and the social and trade union organizations, especially those of the school and the PA, connected to it, formed the strong core (the hard core would have said Occhetto) of that vast and varied conservative bloc which, in the name of the permanent job, of the egalitarian and non-meritocratic school, of the immutability of the "most beautiful constitution in the world" and of the state management of the so-called "common goods" has managed, until now, to prevent Italy began, with the necessary gradualness, a process of profound economic, social and institutional reforms and with it a civil, cultural and even moral renewal of the country. This is a serious historical responsibility for the heirs of the company. A responsibility from which it will not be easy for them to amend. It's true, as someone could object that, for example, Bersani did some privatization and liberalization when he was Minister of Industry.
But it is equally true that when the reform process closely threatened the institutional structure in force Bersani raised the flag of the inviolability of the most beautiful Constitution in the world and when the same process touched schools and universities with the timid reform Gelmini did not hesitate, in defiance of danger, to climb on the roofs of the Faculty of Architecture in Rome occupied by students in defense of the indefensible. Serious errors and difficult to justify. If Renzi succeeds in carrying through the reforms he is in the pipeline and the others that the minority of the Democratic Party has announced, he will have to come to terms with it or he will have to come out into the open and give an open battle and, this time, perhaps no longer inside but, with every probability, outside and against the Democratic Party.
