In the tense moment of Ligurian politics, with the majority and opposition still in the midst of the wall against wall that divides them in the Region and in the Municipality of Genoa, the metropolitan secretary of the dem Simone D’Angelo speaks again. Which after the tense days in which even within the Democratic Party the weight of the consequences of the investigation that overwhelmed the Region was felt, relaunches with an unexpected proposal in view of the “after Toti”: a round of primaries to decide programs and candidates of the progressive coalition.
Secretary, for now Toti is holding on to his post, and on the left there is talk again of a street demonstration in the city. Is it really necessary?
«Democracy needs full squares. In these hours, then, while the right-wingers rejoice at having split Italy with autonomy, saying they want to give more freedom to the regions, in Liguria in the last 40 days the only thing that has happened has been the authorization of a supermarket, yet another. We are at a standstill, it is no longer just the opposition who are reporting it, the stalemate is there for everyone to see.”
But does the progressive front have the weight to insist on early elections? Looking at the full advance of the centre-right in the Regional Council, you wouldn’t think so.
«I can speak for my party. A Democratic Party which, with the Schlein secretariat, has returned to saying who it wants to represent, has returned to recover thousands of votes in Liguria while the others lose them. And in Genoa, where he is firmly the first party, he has reconquered neighborhoods that had turned their backs on the left for years. A happy moment which must however be a warning: these results are an opening of credit that must be put to good use, the primary objective now must be to recover participation”.
Is this the first step before Regionals, regardless of when they are?
«Given the numbers of the European elections, the positive ones of the Democratic Party as well as the very negative ones of abstentionism, I think the first issue is to reflect on how to return the many who no longer want to know about it to democratic participation. Both to vote and to participate in the construction of political paths like the one that our party, and with it the progressive coalition, will have to follow.”
Reflection is fine, but what do you actually need to do?
«We must create places where those citizens who do not participate in political life through parties can contribute to the construction of an alternative. Meeting places and tools where citizens and politics can work together to build change from the bottom up.”
I repeat, however: how to materialize all this?
«With a broad, participatory and popular process of reconstruction of public affairs, without transforming the search for the right tools into the sole aim. There is no need for plebiscitary and self-referential paths, precisely at the moment in which we need to put people’s participation back at the centre. We need to define priority themes, involving everyone, from political forces to citizens, keeping dangerous tactics at bay.”
The only instrument of this kind deployed on the left in recent years has been the primaries. Is there space to launch primaries for the Regionals too?
«Today we would need more than the primaries of ideas, also useful to demonstrate to ourselves that discussions on perimeters and coalitions are overcome by those who are ready to unite for an alternative. I think there is a need to give strength to a bottom-up path of participation that leads parties and voters to decide together the priorities of the field that will present itself in the elections. And certifying the work with a popular passage is the best way to generate cohesion and the mobilization that is often evoked.”
In the Democratic Party, when you say the word primaries, you go back to 2015.
«The shared launch of a process to certify the priorities of the political agenda for change would also be a way to mend the laceration of 2015. The primaries of that time sanctioned a rupture that the PD leadership group painfully transferred to the his electorate, today there are all the conditions to do the opposite job. It could be valid both for the issues to which political action is dedicated and, why not, at the end of a journey of this nature, also for the candidate”.
Despite the important availability already on the pitch, one above all that of Andrea Orlando?
«Those like Orlando who have given us their availability have done so by expressing the belief that the strength and legitimacy of every candidacy will be found in the process of reconstructing the dialogue between politics and citizenship. Much more than what party leaders could give. I also feel his appeal to avoid the temptation to transform the results at the European elections into an invitation to the self-sufficiency of the party and politics: this is not the case, the field must be broadened as much as possible.”
In all this, however, Toti is still the suspended governor of Liguria, and the center-right aims to vote in 2025. Wouldn’t it be a little early to start planning regional elections?
“No, there was an urgency for change before, there is even more of it today, with Toti under house arrest for 40 days and the region under lockdown for 40 days.”
: “Primaries on ideas and names to bring everyone back to choosing, the candidate will be even stronger”){kind=link}