It was enough for the founder of the Republic Eugenio Scalfari, an icon of national journalism and always a proud opponent of Silvio Berlusconi, to say on TV that the populism of the leader of Forza Italia seems to him less inconsistent than that of Di Maio and the Movimento 5 Stelle for unleash a storm on the so-called useful vote in the next political elections and on improbable reversals in the face. To the point that Scalfari himself, covered in grillini insults by those gentlemen of the daily newspaper (but for me - the founder of Repubblica commented with subtle irony - they are "a sort of Legion of honor"), felt compelled to specify two things: 1) that he has never voted and will never vote for Berlusconi but has always voted and will continue to vote for Pd; 2) that "in the event of extreme necessity to overcome a paralyzing situation for the country, the Democratic Party could be forced, as has already happened in the past, into an agreement not of a political nature with Forza Italia, provided it separates from Salvini".
The latter hypothesis, which closely recalls the torments that Germany and above all Angela Merkel and the SPD are experiencing these days, actually seems plausible, if one listens to the polls that see the center-right having the advantage over both the center-left that on the Five Stars but who hypothesize that the Democratic Party can override the grillini and reduce the distances from the center-right in the event that it manages to unite Pisapia, the Greens and the Radicals and other small center formations in a coalition.
But, despite the mobility of the polls, if you do not want to encroach on surreal scenarios, it is good not to forget three essential points: 1) that there are three poles in the field (centre-right, centre-left and M5S) and that, in the absence of an electoral law majority and even more than the French ballot, no race for the last vote between only two alignments on the Ostia model is foreseeable; 2) that, at the state of the polls, it seems unlikely that one of the three poles will be able to reach the threshold of 40% of the votes and win the majority prize by booking the future government alone; 3) that we have returned to a substantially proportional electoral law, as in the First Republic, which does not provide for any popular investiture of the premier, who will instead be chosen by the President of the Republic not only on the basis of the votes received from the electors but on the ability to form alliances which give a majority to the new government.
If this is the case, even considering the not impossible crumbling of the poles after the elections and the reluctance of the Five Stars to seek allies (unless we arrive at the genuflection of Mdp or the quail jump of Salvini and Meloni to the rescue of Di Maio), the script seems to push towards an ineluctable crossroads: either we resign ourselves to ungovernability and prepare to revote after a few months or Silvio Berlusconi and Matteo Renzi will be forced, willy-nilly, to find an agreement, as happened for Pd and Forza Italia at the time of the Monti and Letta governments and the so-called Pact of the Nazarene. And paradoxically, the trump card will not be whoever wins the most votes but whoever knows how to weave the web of alliances better or who, even from minority positions, will be able to guarantee their interlocutor the strength to reach the parliamentary majority. But will Berlusconi and Renzi, Forza Italia and the Democratic Party have the numbers to create a majority? This is the real crux of the upcoming electoral contest.
But then the battle for the useful vote is not that between Berlusconi and Di Maio but that between all the forces available (Forza Italia and Pd in the lead) to guarantee the governability of the country (albeit with different parliamentary positions) and the Five Stars. In short, either we are moving towards some form of agreement against adventures or ungovernability is unavoidable.
This is why the signal launched by Scalfari, net of useless exploitation, is an important signal that shuffles the cards on the table and outlines the playing field by focusing on the evanescence of Grillina's political offer (not to mention Bersani and D' Alema and acronyms to their left) and clearing customs not so much the ex Cavaliere but the dialogue between Forza Italia and the Democratic Party that the electoral results could push to broad agreements to dribble the quagmire of ungovernability.
