All the mistakes of Zingaretti and Di Maio on the referendum
Because the methods that Di Maio and Zingaretti are following on the referendum are too “Renzian”
As Matteo Renzi committed in 2016 the mistake of personalizing the referendum on constitutional reform – which had at least the merit of its organic consistency – not opening but opening the doors to opponents, inside and outside his party, excited by the idea of being able to overthrow their leadership, so Nicola Zingaretti and Luigi Di Maio have recently committed, willy-nilly, the mistake of transforming into a referendum on their government alliance what should have concerned only the reduction of the number of parliamentary seats on 20 September . They are two errors, so to speak, parallel.
Zingaretti's exultation in the face of the sudden digital consultation of less than 50,000 pentastellated militants, which at least on paper have allowed the possibility of extending to the periphery, making it even strategic, the tactical government alliance made last year with Pd under the banner of exceptionalism and the anti-Salvinian emergency, has multiplied the resistance and doubts on the constitutional referendum in what is considered the largest party of the Italian left. At least you have the good sense now to vote no to the reduction of parliamentary seats, for example, the former president of the Democratic Party Matteo Orfini basically said, holding that the yes signifies total "surrender" to the 5 Star Movement.
The leader of the Democratic Party in the Senate Andrea Marcucci, also dissatisfied with the renunciation of the Democratic Party of all the legal disputes brought against the grillini before the government agreement, and decided on his own to promote others if necessary, has given an appointment to Zingaretti at the congress which he will not be able to escape after the referendum and the regional and municipal elections to which it was combined: elections remained of uncertain destiny for his party even after the "turning point" of the theoretical yes of the grillina base to agreements of a local nature, which are struggling to be carried out as far as now supported by Di Maio until they are registered.
I think that even among the voters who remained attached to the 5 Star Movement after all the defeats following the now unrepeatable success of 2018, the temptation to make the management team pay dearly for it, which used 60 percent of the less than 50,000, is growing these days. militants – I repeat – mobilized on the computer to literally change the connotations of the political formation born from Beppe Grillo's theater and square shows, including invectives, insults and so on. Imagine how the desire for a negative reaction among the voters of the Democratic Party will grow, but also of the center-right forces lined up for the yes at the top level to curiously pursue the anti-caste demagogy of Di Maio and friends.
Among the forceists, I was struck by the happy conciseness of the answer given by Senator Lucio Malan , even without naming it, to the president of the group of the Chamber Mariastella Gelmini who stood up for the yes: "Mussolini in 1929, in an Italy of 40 million inhabitants , he reduced the deputies from 541 to 400. But they seemed few even to him and in 1939 he brought them to 949 (appointed by him). Now the grillini want to bring them back to 400, with 60 million inhabitants. Any comments? Mine is: I vote no ”. And Malan spared himself from confessing in public even the desire for an extended no to the alliance between Zingaretti's yes and Di Maio's yes.
The electoral rejection of the palace alliance which was reached last year between piddini and grillini could well determine in a month the no referendum excluded by all until a few weeks ago. And if that were the case, it would be the crisis, if only for the overwhelming desire for revenge of the Grillini leaders against a Democratic Party that they would feel unbearably double. At that point, all hesitation would fall, even the fear of going down to a figure in another Parliament.
If and how Mattarella managed to keep the legislature still standing in the event of a crisis, plastering all its limbs, it would all need to be verified, even with the urgencies or emergencies imposed by the epidemic, by the economic, financial and social crisis, by the unmissable opportunity. of the European funds for recovery available from next year and those for health available already now but indigestible to the grillini, who remained on this side sovereigns like the Northern League, the government allies of the first hour.
If instead the referendum yes wins, the alliance between the Democratic Party and Grillini could breathe a sigh of relief, but I don't know frankly how long and how long because the waters in both the Democratic Party and the 5 Star Movement would remain equally agitated: in the Democratic Party, then, very agitated if in the seven regions and over a thousand municipalities in which voting will take place on 20 September, with the ballot boxes alongside those of the referendum, the results were not investable by Zingaretti in a congressional peace.
Yes, a congressional peace. Let's not forget, after Marcucci's warning, the congress that will still await Zingaretti in the Democratic Party, where he was elected secretary in a very different political scenario, and with the commitment not to agree with the grillini without a preventive electoral passage at that point anticipated : the opposite of what would later happen. And do you want no one to ask him or present him with the bill, between one dispute and another, of a majority destined to continue suffering, being its weakness in the intrinsic contradiction? It seems difficult to me.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/tutti-gli-errori-di-zingaretti-e-di-maio-sul-referendum/ on Sat, 22 Aug 2020 04:55:10 +0000.