The new city council has just taken office and the emotion of those elected is palpable. And who knows how excited the councilors who took office in 1946 were, after twenty years of fascist regime. Among them was my grandfather, Claudio Varese, a Sardinian socialist teacher who arrived in Ferrara in the early 1930s. The secular rites of democracy were not at all a given for that generation. In 1946, the PCI obtained 43% of the votes, while the PSI obtained 30%. Although by a small margin, the local result was better than that for the Constituent Assembly. The same cannot be said of the outcome of June 9, 2024. As painful as it is, we must make a merciless analysis of the results and ask ourselves what progressives can do to win again in this city.
In Ferrara, out of 160 seats, the left prevailed in four and tied in as many. The voting map is a sea of blue with almost invisible red dots. The mayoral candidate’s list collected less than 6%, while Alan Fabbri’s 30.56%. The comparison with the results of the European elections is merciless: 31% of voters voted PD for the Brussels Parliament, while in the Municipality only 22.51% chose that party. More than 6,400 votes (9%) are missing. Some say that it is physiological for a party to obtain fewer votes in local consultations (where civic lists run) than in national ones. Yet the PD in Ferrara records, compared to the rest of the region, the largest gap (negative) between the two results. This gap has even increased compared to the other catastrophic outcome of 2019.
While the PD of Elly Schlein and Stefano Bonaccini (now allies) gains votes, the local organization loses them. The PD is obviously not starting from scratch: The elected councilors mark an important renewal for the future. The defeat is not only of the PD. M5S and Sinistra-Verdi also lose votes compared to the European elections. When the La Comune group decided to form an alternative list, its exponents claimed that they would curb left-wing abstentionism. This did not happen. Zonari was elected with just 3.9%, a result very far from that of Fusari in 2019 (8.63%). Many today criticize the campaign of Fabio Anselmo, who committed himself generously. The limit of that candidacy was upstream: the dialogue started on the left was abruptly interrupted, without organizing coalition primaries in time. They wanted to force it when instead it was necessary to expand and build.
It is surprising that the parties of the losing coalition did not use modern political tools well to understand what the people of Ferrara wanted. Polls can guide the electoral campaign and identify areas where to concentrate resources and debate. It is not enough to ask a blunt question about names at the beginning of the campaign (Calafà vs Anselmo) and one during the race, always about names and without scientific methods. The left did not lose because it was incapable of communicating (a very widespread and absolving thesis), it lost because it did not know how to listen and understand.
The Municipality interacts with the Province, where the left loses almost everywhere. We therefore need a method and a project for the entire Ferrarese area if we want to avoid yet another debacle in 2029. We need to leave the Walls and immediately identify a few key issues. We then need to make public initiatives that propose clear solutions. We need to listen, study and not improvise. With humility and courage we must strive to be worthy heirs of those who were elected in that distant 1946.
* teacher at universities
from Oxford and Paris
(Sciences Po)
