In the war for supremacy in the opposition between PD And M5s for now it’s the one who pays the price Michele Emiliano. If the resident actually thought he could solve the “trouble” in Region replacing two councilors in the council (while the Apulian Democratic Party got rid of its regional representatives involved in judicial investigations), yesterday Elly Schlein has raised the bar, taking back the centrality of the scene: «It is not enough to replace those who have left the Democratic Party, we need a change of pace» replies the national secretary of the Dems to Michele Emiliano who in an interview with HuffPost had said: «We just have to fill in the holes, I’m missing two councilors: it’s a healthy party.” Schlein doesn’t seem to be of the same opinion: the target is once again there Pugliathe battlefield of an increasingly less friendly dispute with the Five Star Movement, also thanks to the choice of Giuseppe Conte to hold his press conference in Bari, instead of entrusting the abandonment of the regional council to its territorial leaders, keeping the case hot in the national newspapers.
The climate and declarations
In the climate overheated by dozens of comments, from the most constructive such as that of the president Stefano Bonaccini who speaks of “isolated cases but asks for signs of novelty” to the most severe, such as that of Andrea Orlando who asks Emiliano to “not minimize”, Elly Schlein back to the bomb: «I asked President Emiliano to follow up on what I said last Friday in Bari: keep away quick-change artists, defectors from the centre-right and people on whose moral rigor there is the slightest shadow. In the Democratic Party that we are rebuilding, the wrong interests and opaque methods must find closed and sealed doors.” And therefore, he continues, «I expect a clear change of phase to proceed which», the secretary states, «cannot translate into a mere replacement of those who have left, but only in a concrete renewal of the regional government structures that establishes a new beginning, on different bases. I trust that President Emiliano will work along this line quickly and with tangible results.”
In short, a full-blown ultimatum, after Emiliano had seemed more interested in talking with Conte than with the Democratic Party. Also in the evening, the governor’s reply, still conciliatory: «I will follow up on the instructions of the secretary with whom we share the need to signal a clear change of phase». In fact, Emiliano later let it be known that he will convene a majority meeting in the Region at the beginning of next week. The Puglia Democratic Party joins in: «We are satisfied with the President’s prompt response – writes the regional secretary of the Dem, Domenico De Santis -. From tomorrow we will be working to follow up on the Secretary’s instructions.” The back and forth, as well as the timing, confirm the tension between Bari and Rome, where a fringe of the Nazarene would like the Apulian party to be placed under commissionership. And with the temporary weakness of Puglia grappling with the judicial earthquake of the Region and Municipality of Bari, wash away the original sin of an excessive dependence of the center-left on the “Emilian system”.
As it has been repeatedly reproached, in fact, the Democratic Party would also rely on the president’s work, capable of miraculous coalition expansions under elections accepted by all as a godsend, even without going too subtle about names and origins. Especially since Emiliano has always claimed his power to “convert” new followers politically.
An embrace so close as to push the Apulian Democratic Party to also establish collaboration with the civic bodies as a statutory norm, all very close to the president, also in defining relations with the party.
But with the ongoing scandal now Emiliano is being presented with the bill. And from his collaborative attitude, the governor seems to be fully aware of this. The Democratic Party has no choice but to find the difficult balance between the wishes of the national leaders and the reality of Puglia. In distancing himself from the councilor involved in the scandal of bought votes, in fact, De Santis was practically forced to also purge the group leader in the Region Filippo Caracciolo – sent to trial last February – and Michele Mazzarano, who was his “fault” instead he had already served it in 2018 by resigning as councilor and had then been among Elly Schlein’s supporters at the congress.
But the game, as we know, is much broader and in the background there is the Democratic Party’s nightmare of losing ground to the M5s. The Puglia case has widened the gap in the broad field: in the dem house there are those who read Conte’s moves as an attempt to take over the leadership of the opposition. On the other hand, the leader of the five stars scored two hits in one: with his farewell to the Apulian council he demonstrated that the M5s is not attached to the seats and at the same time he challenged Michele Emiliano in the field of legality. Hence the urgent need not to transform Conte into the solitary flag of transparency.
the “discomfort” in a letter from the base
Meanwhile, a document with the explanatory title “Militant discomfort” has been circulating for days in the Apulian party chats. The first signatories were Valentina Battaglini and Marco Marazia from Salento. Followed by a string of over 160 signatures, arriving from all over Puglia, including the leader of the Puglia PD Leonardo Palmisano, the Lecce city councilors Antonio Rotundo and Paola Povero, the former president of the commission that rewrote the party’s statute, Trisorio Liuzzi, the former regional councilors Sergio Blasi, Peppino Pirro and Sabino Zinni, Michele Lamacchia, former mayor of San Ferdinando, the deputy mayor of Crispiano Anna Sgobbio and many others: «The firmness and the words that our Secretary has used in recent days are good difficult, but now we need a change of pace in practice and daily actions – they write – we need actions consistent with this line in territorial and national choices”.
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