Salis: 'A leader is missing'. Schlein's reply: 'The Democratic Party is already over 24%'

At the Citadel of Peace in Arezzo, the secretary of the Democratic Party Elly Schlein seemed rather aggressive: she defended herself by going on a counterattack. In one interview out of 7 in Corriere della Sera, the mayor of Genoa Silvia Salis came down hard: the centre-left "has developed very powerful antibodies against victory" and then it "lacks a recognized leader". A double thrust that left more than one mouth twisted in the Democratic Party. Gathered for a seminar in Rondine, a medieval village that hosts students from countries at war with each other, the topic bounced around among the deputies queuing on the veranda for a scout-style lunch.

More or less the reading was common: "The mayor is running to lead the coalition". Salis has always denied it. To make no mistake, however, Schlein tried to dismantle his reasoning: "The finally united progressive alliance is capable of winning the next elections." And then she ventured a prediction: "Although the polls will tend to bring us back to 18% before the elections, I am convinced that we are higher than we were in the European elections" when the Democratic Party took 24%, making it the second party in Italy after Fdi. Finally, closing the meeting with the deputies, Schlein gave an answer to the issue of the recognisability of the leadership: "I would no longer be here to speak at the PD group seminar for the third time, if we had faltered in the results", he joked, recalling the duration of his mandate at the helm of the PD, the longest in the history of the party. Two days before the assembly called to extend her mandate, the secretary aimed straight at the 2027 elections.

The new electoral law "introduces an element of internal competition that must be managed with extreme care", he said, referring to the topic of leadership and primaries, but "knowing that there will be more of us", that is, that it is the Democratic Party that leads the opposition. Then, the internal reassurance of the currents, especially the minority of reformists, in view of the lists: "There will be space for everyone, like in the European elections, where we also made interesting additions", because "I am convinced that the spirit of unity is one of the reasons that has made us grow". Followed by a series of warnings to the allies, M5s and Avs: "There will be a discussion on the program, we must refine and put down the things that are still complicated such as support for Ukraine which for us is a decisive point". The program "must be done immediately and with everyone", therefore also with the centrists and Iv, because the objective is "to broaden and be inclusive".

But this requires a little patience. To the M5s and Avs who are pushing for the opening of the table, Schlein reiterated that "a great listening process shared with categories, intermediate bodies, the trade union world" is needed. Therefore, she underlined: "I am not willing to give up for the sake of others the fact that we must make this path attractive and participatory" because "unity is everyone's responsibility". For Schlein, the objective of victory is based on the recovery of abstentionists, not on the geometry of the internal competition of the alliance: "The issue is to be credible towards those who voted in the referendum but not in the European elections". If at least half of those voters supported the centre-left - this is the reasoning - the elections would be "structurally" won, because the centre-right historically always gets the same number of votes, even if they move between one party and another.