A long game of tennis. Except that up until now the exchanges had been days apart. While this time they followed one another within a few hours. On both sides of the field, the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and the leader of the Democratic Party Elly Schlein. This time the report was from the secretary, who immediately went on the attack at the party leadership: "The right has failed, let them go home, the sooner we vote the better."
Then, a reverse: mindful of the provocation of about ten days ago, when Meloni offered to give her "under the table" at least "one real argument" to contest her, Schlein threw the ball back: "A true thing? I'll tell you 10", and down the list: from taxes to birth rate, to precariousness and so on and so on. It wasn't a decisive point though.
Because the prime minister replied via social media: "Elly Schlein responds today to a question I asked her ten days ago. At this rate I can do well at solving the problems of Italians. Ps. Ah, and obviously she does it by listing ten falsehoods". The post remained in the air for a few hours.
It seemed that the time had come to gain the locker room, when Schlein showed up. He took advantage of the reply to the management, in the (football-wise) area of Cesarini: "Since you reproach me for the response times, I would like to point out that it took you four years to obtain these results", and so on again the list with ten points also including "salaries at a standstill, very expensive energy, increasing poverty, healthcare at the end of its tether, economic immobility, decline in industrial production".
Then the end: Meloni "can raise his voice and shout, but in the end the facts remain, and the Italians who experience it first-hand every day know it". In support, a charge to his followers: "After twenty years we have the possibility of winning the elections, of bringing about change, of improving people's lives. Let's go and win". Nobody expects the game to end here. Tennis matches can last hours and hours. This will last much longer.
Meanwhile, the leadership of the Democratic Party unanimously approved the report by secretary Elly Schlein. The reformist wing, a minority of the party, did not participate in the vote. This is what we learned from some participants in the meeting. The vote was greeted with applause.
"The program is written with the entire alliance, knowing full well that we need to be inclusive, but that no one is as good as one in that discussion. Because no one has given us anything, if we are solidly the first opposition party we have earned it with sweat and commitment, to convince people one by one that they have given us double the votes of the other forces, in the European, regional and municipal elections. Generous yes, naive no", said Schlein in the party leadership's report to Nazarene.
"In the face of fears, we must offer hope and protection. We must build the alternative to defeat the right-wingers who have failed. They celebrated the longest-serving government with disproportionate fanfare, but stability, if it translates into immobility, does not do the country any good. You can stay in Palazzo Chigi for a long time while the country stands still, as Giorgia Meloni did."
"We must refine the common program, so that it is a binding pact with everyone. A pact with the Italians. First the common program, then the leadership, because whoever leads must lead the entire alliance, not just one party". "We are ready. The program must be refined together with the entire progressive alliance, with all those who want to build the alternative and it is essential that this path is made among the people. The program is written with the entire alliance".
"In recent years we have worked tirelessly together for the unity of the party and the progressive alliance, we have achieved both, we must be proud of it. There is a strategic alliance between forces that are autonomous but which together can beat the right. We will never again do the right the favor of dividing us. The journey is not complete but the alternative is a concrete reality: the compass is the Constitution".
"This government - he added - is not held together by a vision of the future, but by a power pact based on an exchange: differentiated autonomy, blocked by the Constitutional Court, premiership abandoned even by its promoters, justice reform rejected by 15 million voters".
"I would like to close by removing a few pebbles from my shoe - the Dem leader had previously explained -. We have relaunched the party, we have grown in every electoral round, we have kept membership high, we have reopened historic offices, we have sent triple the resources to territories, we have brought the party back to where people expect it".
"We have restored the budget. A serious party must say what it does to do what it says. We are the leading party in most regions. In recent years they had bet that we would split and instead we are more united than ever. They had bet that I would not last six months and instead I have reached the end of my mandate, I think that is good news. They had bet on our arguments and divisions to prevent the construction of an alternative to Meloni. The last mile, the most important, is missing. that we must do together and united, until victory. The fear we arouse in those in power says that the path is right".
Conte to Schlein: 'One is worth one means that whoever says stop the weapons counts'
"For me one is worth one means that the citizens count, that for the vast majority the 60 and 70% say enough to these military escalations with the sound of weapons. They say enough rearmament they want the money to be put into healthcare, schools, nursery schools, education". The president of the M5s, Giuseppe Conte, said this on the sidelines of an event in Frosinone. "For me they are what matters and to give them a perspective of changing the policy of this Meloni government. We will have to work first, but all of us with an authentically united spirit to send Meloni home and completely change policy on the internal and foreign policy levels."
"Schlein has officially confirmed that for her there are two paths: either she is the candidate for prime minister or there will be primaries. I believe at this point that the path is very clear, there are no alternatives, it will be the path of primaries, because we must always prefer the direction of Democratic participation".
