The attempt by Tomaso Montanari and his association 11 Agosto to create an alternative pole to Sara Funaro’s centre-left in view of the municipal elections runs aground along the banks of the Arno. The news was given by the rector of the University for Foreigners of Siena himself, who had also immediately announced that he did not want to run for mayor.
A whole series of factors stopped the project. First, the attitude of the Florentine M5s, which 40 days after the vote, divided internally, has not yet decided what to do. The question could have been resolved with a consultation of the base, as was the case in other Tuscan municipalities – Livorno, Empoli, Borgo San Lorenzo among these – where in the end the Five Star Movement allied themselves with the alternative left. But the symbolic value of the Florentine challenge, combined with Funaro’s attitude which continues to keep the doors of a possible alliance open, has been slowing down the final decision for weeks.
Furthermore, the five-star votes, which in any case are not many in the city (7% in 2019), could however be enough for the Democratic Party and its allies to exceed 50% already in the first round. A prospect that would allow us to eliminate in one fell swoop both Eike Schmidt’s centre-right and Matteo Renzi’s Italia Viva, which by nominating regional vice-president Stafania Saccardi intends to make a possible electoral alliance pay dearly in the event of a run-off.
Certainly the alliance between the centre-left and the M5s intrigues Giuseppe Conte, and is also supported by the Italian Left in an anti-Renzian key. But it clashes with the differences in sensitivity among the local Five Star Movement, where there are quite a few activists who would prefer to run alone and then negotiate – like Renzi, who however is stronger than them in the city – in the run-off.
The picture that emerged nevertheless convinced the former councilor for urban planning dem Cecilia Del Re, initially attracted both by Montanari’s project (which she reciprocated) and by that of Italia Viva, to run for mayor with her Democratic Florence, ensuring however, in the event of a run-off his votes will go to the centre-left.
Convincing Montanari not to present a list on his own were also internal doubts within the Firenze Città Aperta association, which initially supported the attempt. But in the last assembly half of the members supported at this point the support of the Left common project, which has long been nominating the outgoing city councilors Dmitrij Palagi and Antonella Bundu. “Two fundamental forces – Montanari summed up – blocked the way to the project. The M5S is still negotiating to act as a crutch for a management of power that could not be further from its values. And Spc has always shown distrust.”
Meanwhile, Schmidt’s centre-right confirms, beyond the presumed civility of its candidate, an endemic lack of political planning, which can be summarized in the latest releases of the German art historian. He ranges from the eternal denunciation, without proposals for resolution of the problem, of the degradation and insecurity that would grip the city, up to the bizarre proposal of the tram lines – never accepted by the local right – underground. Furthermore, Schmidt, interviewed by the Times, copied the Trumpian slogan “Make Florence great again”. And at Spiegel, to the great dismay of the many compatriots who live between Florence and Chianti in the summer months, he talks about a city that recalls an old cover of the German periodical. The one with the P38 on a plate of spaghetti.
