Small steps to try to correct the course? Or inaction that smacks of postponements, dead ends, attempts at survival and only “spectacular” solutions? Michele Emiliano, after the whirlwind of political-judicial scandals and the pressure of Elly Schlein and Giuseppe Conte, partially reveals his cards, but at least for now neither a poker nor a royal flush is on the table. Translated: no reset and revolution of the council in the Region, that is, the expected and disruptive signal of political discontinuity invoked at the top of the lungs by the national leaders of the Pd and M5s. The joker played yesterday by the governor after a weekend of consultations with centre-left groups is only one: a three-year staff rotation plan, primarily – we read – of the “managers of the sections at high risk of corruption”. For the political substance, however, please review. Probably in a few days, but in the chaos it is always better to remain cautious.
In the Region we dribble on the defensive, playing with the diabolical and precarious structures of the majority. Hoping that in the meantime – and it is already happening – the dust raised by the storm of the Puglia case will settle and the spotlight focused in recent weeks by the national leaders of the Pd and M5s will be lowered. Meanwhile, the fury that animated Schlein and Conte in demanding the Region’s clean-up on transformations and ambiguities of various kinds seems to have already diminished or completely subsided. Just on Saturday, a guest on “La Repubblica delle idee” and asked on the point, the secretary reiterated that in Puglia «we no longer want to see transformations and defectors», without adding anything else on the “what” and the “how”. The same Conte, who landed in Bari to blow up the center-left city primaries and ready to threaten who knows what sensational breach in order to maximize visibility and consensus, no longer launches ultimatums or publicly calls for an account of the “protocol for legality” (do you remember him? ) delivered to Emiliano. “I didn’t go to Puglia to save the governor, I gave objective slaps,” the former five-star prime minister claimed on Sunday. But among the corridors of the Region we are already predicting the return, sooner or later, of the five stars in the regional council. As per the script.
In short: in the increasingly volatile and fickle political debate, the Bari-Puglia case no longer seems to interest anyone or almost anyone outside the regional borders, at least until the next possible scandal. Furthermore, yesterday was election day in Basilicata: the centre-right of the outgoing Vito Bardi won over the centre-left in the Pd-M5s structure, which had rallied as best it could around a last-minute candidate (Piero Marrese). The wide field is a scheme that works on alternating current and based on too many variables, and which is in a crisis of identity and results. And so perhaps throwing new fuel on the Apulian fire – is the reasoning – can only complicate things: it’s fine to ride the Apulian “moral question”, yes, but not too much. Now, the confusion and doubts of Schlein and Conte (who are also struggling with the European Championships) and the weakening of the national spotlight on Puglia can help Emiliano get away cheaply. The scheme currently provides for the councilors to step back, a supplementary consultation with the majority groups, the latter’s indication of a limited list of councilors to be recruited by the council, and finally the choices of the governor (who will draw from “high profiles” also the two external councilors). All this by putting a padlock on a council majority suddenly grappling with precarious numbers.
Objective, in two words: to make a living, and we’ll see in a year. Emiliano will probably hold his ground and withstand the impact, the Municipalities of Bari and Lecce could also help to soothe the wounds. The point, however, is another, already mentioned: to deal with ordinary methods in an exceptional and epochal situation, in which everything falls apart. True: the governor’s hands are tied, because he cannot draw much on the outside to appoint councilors (maximum two) and because he must give account to the council groups, which guarantee him room for maneuver in the chamber. But beyond the council reshuffle and the sticker game there is more. First point: we need a real and explicit desire to cleanly cut ties with sectors of the “coalition that governs Puglia” that are too opaque and wavering. Second: we need an end-of-term project, with well-defined and concrete ideas, objectives and projects on key fronts. Third: structural solutions in the name of transparency must be strengthened, and the staff rotation plan is only a timid start. Fourth: different and more genuine blood must be injected into the political project of the Apulian centre-left, weakened and deprived of identity by alliances that are too cheerful and by Emiliano’s rush to easy consensus, possibly trying to build new protagonists and leadership of the future. Discontinuity manifests itself in this way, and only in this way is the heritage of credibility rebuilt. It is a question of courage, which perhaps many – including national leaders – lack today in the centre-left, to the point that everyone now after the chaos could be content to get by, between downward solutions and calculations. Puglia christened the “Spring” of the progressives 20 years ago, was the first to celebrate the marriage between the Pd and the M5s, was always the first to decree the fracture of the broad camp and today is the theater of the fears that torment the center-left. With steps to make one’s way through the rubble so small that they feel like immobility.
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