On the one hand, the new mayor of Florence Matteo Renzi who thunders from the Leopolda: “The Pd needs pioneers. Away with bureaucrats and veterans!”. On the other, Bersani's calmer reply: "I respect everyone, but Renzi's are ideas from the 80s." The impression is that of being in yet another clash within the main party of the left at the least opportune moment. Just now that the polls are beginning to signal a reversal of trend towards the centre-right (more due to the demerit of the PDL than to the merit of the Pd) internal cohesion in the centre-left is moving away. Then it's time to think calmly.
Let's start with the Leopolda. There is no doubt that Renzi's "Big Ben" was a good success, especially in the media. Over three thousand participants (a sign of a robust and rich organizational effort), a good return on newspapers and television, important guests such as the former mayor of Turin Chiamparino. but above all a greedy (for the press) confrontation with the secretary Bersani engaged in the same days to meet the young militants of the South in Naples. Other than that, however, there wasn't much. In his lengthy speech, Renzi was more concerned with accentuating the signal of a personal contrast (the young pioneers against the old bureaucrats, responsible, in his opinion, for the Italian public debt) rather than with giving clear indications on what to do and with whom make them. So on the one hand a message between the populist and the youthful, on the other a generic reference to the need to make content prevail over alignmentsthe. But what the contents are is not yet clear.
Renzi spoke of 100 ideas to implement. Perhaps they are too many to become something concrete. But above all Renzi, who has also referred to the primaries several times, has not said whether or not he will be in the match. He is probably right Stefano Folli who wrote in "Il sole 24 ore" that for the mayor of Florence "the difficult part is now" given that "it is easy to gather smiles and pats on the back when you stay in the generic".
Let's move on now Bersani and his meeting in Naples (the place is already news) with the young people of the Southern Democratic Party. Attention, this is the meaning of the secretary's message, “not to mistake certain ideas used since the 80s for new. We are in a dramatic phase on the labor market, between redundancy payments and the greatest flexibility in the world, and there are those who think that by being fired one can be hired. These simple recipes, these too easy ideas only lead to trouble”. It is clear that Bersani's reference is more to Berlusconi than to the young mayor of Florence. But among the secretary's supporters there are those who consider Renzi only a youthful populist; and some go so far as to speak of a real "Berluschino". Bad things that animate and have always animated the internal life of the parties, often creating confusion. And there is no doubt that internal clarity in the Democratic Party is a difficult goal to bring to life and above all to perceive from the outside.
How many internal currents are there? Difficult to count them difficult to identify the boundaries. And how will the various Lettas, Fraceschinis, Civatis, Parisi, Veltronis, D'Alema, Bindi and so on position themselves with respect to the outbreak of the Renzi cyclone? There would be one way to understand better: a congress. But congresses today are out of fashion. And then everything refers to the primaries. Provided, however, that they are true and open primaries. Like those that took place in France. And not rigid primaries, as the so-called coalition ones could be. Which would make very little sense if they were reduced to a referendum between Bersani, Vendola and Di Pietro. If, on the other hand, they were real primaries with more representatives of the Democratic Party in the field, it is not at all certain that Bersani (who has long announced that he wants to run as a candidate) and not Renzi (who, not surprisingly, has not yet announced his candidacy) would succumb.
