Il chosen is Franco Marini. The petal extracted from the list of candidates of the Democratic Party for the race for the Quirinale is that of the former president of the Senate, who remained outside Parliament, as Matteo Renzi recalled with a certain perfidy in recent days, after the last electoral round. A choice that pleases the PDL and, with some reservations, also Civic Choice, but which, instead, has hit the center-left like a cyclone, leaving only a few buildings intact, while all around is dust and rubble.
Marini's name surfaced from the conversation between Bersani and Berlusconi, who thus obtained what he really wanted, the exclusion of Prodi from the race, willingly accepting a moderate candidate like Marini and inviting his group to vote together. The former president of the Senate, following the logic of broad agreements, is seen as the element capable of garnering the greatest transversal consensus among the various political alignments.
A transversal consensus, however, which was not such within the center-left: the big voters of the Democratic Party approved the choice with 222 yes and 90 at the end of a scorching assembly. Many discontented, starting with Matteo Renzi, who had already severely rejected Marini's candidacy in recent days, guilty, according to him, of having exploited his Catholic affiliation to obtain an office. For the mayor of Florence, who can count on around fifty delegates, the former president of the Senate is "the worst choice".
Not only Renzi, however, because even Stefano Fassina, and with him all the young Turks, didn't take the decision well, and did nothing to hide it. But the last tear in chronological order is that of Nichi Vendola, so far rather silent. The leader of SEL expressed all his perplexities about Marini, announcing the decision of his group to support Stefano Rodotà, official candidate of the 5 Star Movement after the resignations of Milena Gabanelli and Gino Strada.
But to express their disappointment today, they are especially the voters of the Democratic Party. Taking a quick look on the social networks, a chorus of voices rises and plays a single note, the convinced "no" to Marini's choice, a choice that is seen as smoke and mirrors by a base that would like everything, but find themselves in the hands, once again, of Silvio Berlusconi.
The base was hoped rather an opening to the 5 Star Movement on the name of Rodotà, or a repetition of the very happy move that had led to the presidency of the Chambers Grasso and Laura Boldrini, the proposal of a relatively new and surprising name, which united the left and put the grillini with its back to the wall. The name that recurs most often, in posts on Facebook and in tweets, is that of Emma Bonino.
And while the consensus towards the party and, above all, towards its leader continue their inflexible erosion, the Democratic Party must decide what it wants to do when it grows up: go its own way or continue to chase the grillini, or definitively open the door to Berlusconi and to a government of broad understandings, knowing that each of these three paths leads to an impervious ascent.
