With the second round of the municipal elections, the center-left prevailed overall in 17 out of 29 capitals and in all six regional ones. Gianni Cuperlo, deputy of the Democratic Party, did a clear message come from the polls? Is there a possible alternative to this right?
“The message is very clear, the result is tennis-like if we look at the regional capitals: 6 to zero. An evident fact in his signal. We are recovering consensus in the big cities and this happens, moreover – which seems very significant to me – in the most popular neighbourhoods, while the right-wing vote is concentrated more markedly in the so-called ZTL neighbourhoods. Thus what was the reading of the last ten years is overturned. I consider this a very important fact because it is the result of an electoral campaign conducted on a terrain that was predominantly that of the social needs of people and families. Having built over the last year a constant campaign of information, knowledge and consensus on the issues of the minimum wage, the defense of public health and against differentiated autonomy, which divides this country and penalizes the regions of the South but also those of the North, has borne fruit. This vote in fact rewards the policy and the choices that have been made, with particular merit that must be recognized to our secretary (Elly Schlein, ed.)”.
Above all, in the six regional capitals, the progressive forces regrouped in the second round: united can we win?
“I would say yes. Whoever does not want to see this walks blindfolded. Where we have built – let’s leave aside the definition of wide, narrow, high, low fields, which do not bring good results – broad alliances, involving different forces and also civic ones but also forces that today in Parliament are in opposition to this right, the result rewarded us. Also because there is a common sense among the people who recognize the merit of the candidatures at a local level. The result such as that of Florence with Sara Funaro, of Bari with Vito Leccese or of Perugia with Vittoria Ferdinandi are exactly the result of candidacies rooted in those territories which also guaranteed a sort of pride in those communities. I am thinking above all of the result in Bari which the right had described in the previous months as a sort of Gotham city, a city prisoner of crime, and which instead 70% rewarded Mayor Decaro’s closest collaborator, thus giving a strong signal of pride, the refusal to be described for how that city and that community does not feel and live. Now we need to work so that this ability to ally and aggregate is the reference base, the pedestal of an alternative that can also be used in terms of the next political elections. Once again our secretary is right to say she is ‘stubbornly united’”.
The day after the defeat in the municipal elections, the majority talks about revising the electoral law for the administrative elections which provides for a double round.
“That is something truly incredible. That is, they lose the elections and the next day they want to change the electoral rules thinking that that is the problem. The truth is that this right respects the rules, or sometimes tailors them, when they are favorable or functional to them. In this case, after the defeat, it really seems like a way to kick the ball into the stands”.
“The idea of granting more autonomy is not an invention of the center-right and myself but a principle present in the Constitution with Title V, a reform launched in 2001 approved by majority vote under the government of Amato, a government of the left” , said the prime minister.
“Yes, but we have said this a thousand times. I think that the bicameral failed in 1998. The last bicameral commission was also the last attempt to bring about reforms of the Constitution in a bipartisan way, that is, with a convergence. After that there were 26 years during which both sides thought they could change the Constitution or write electoral laws by majority vote. We did it with the Title V reform which, done that way, was a mistake. We did it with the Renzi reform in 2016, rejected by the referendum. We did it with the Rosatellum which is a terrible electoral law. They did it with the Devolution in 2006 and with the famous rubbish of the electoral law, so called by Calderoli, of the Porcellum. And they are doing it with the two pedals of the bicycle composed of premiership and differentiated autonomy. But this does not take away the fact that we have never thought of Autonomy as a secession of the rich regions from the rest of the country. And recognizing the mistake we made in passing Title V reform alone. Now we intend to unpack Italy into 20 different energy, health, training and education policies and this means the end of the country’s unity, the end of Article 5 of the Constitution on Italy being one and indivisible. And they should also think about it on the right because, if it is true that we will be very firm in our opposition, it seems to me that there is a lot of discontent and disagreement regarding this way of proceeding on the right too.”
Once again, to justify the Northern League reform, Meloni recalls that the PD-led Emilia Romagna – like other red regions – asked for more autonomy in 2018.
“Here too, as Stefano Bonaccini has explained countless times now, that request, the pre-agreement signed with the Gentiloni government, envisaged a series of interventions and delegations of matters to the Region without any increase in expenditure for the central State and simply produced an improvement and an increase in the efficiency of some administrative and bureaucratic procedures. We can discuss the merits of it, but it is quite curious that to legitimize a terrible reform that the government is implementing and which was voted on in a late-night session, the prime minister appeals solely to centre-left reforms. Maybe she too is unconvinced or even embarrassed.”
Meloni, again, says that 30 years ago Occhetto was ahead of Schlein in the premiership…
“He says this because he read the editorial of the director of the Truth Belpietro, who dusted off the progressive program of 1994. Even in the bicameral commission the hypothesis of a premiership as opposed to the idea of semi-presidentialism was discussed. It would be enough to point out to Meloni, however, that it was a completely different context in which the direct election of the head of government was never thought of. We were thinking of a form of legitimation through the presence of the name of the prime ministerial candidate on the ballot paper but within the context of a complex institutional architecture of checks and balances which would even go beyond an equal bicameralism like the current one, which would provide for constructive no-confidence, discussion of legal provisions with a certain date…Giorgia Meloni’s premiership is not standing. There is not a single democracy in the world that adopts direct election of the head of government. The one who experienced it three times was Israel and, seeing the failure of that model, it retraced its steps. The Prime Minister and the government should be advised to express her judgments with greater caution. Also of a historical nature. All the more so in terms of the historical character of this government, it would be appropriate for other ministers to also reflect. Every reference is coincidental.”
