Elly Schlein’s Head-to-Head Numbers

What doesn't add up in the analysis of the secretary of the Democratic Party, Elly Schlein, on the referendum results. The editorial by Francesco Cundari taken from the newsletter La Linea

The Democratic Party's reaction to the referendum defeat is a further demonstration of the progressive cultural and anthropological assimilation of its leadership to the 5 Star Movement, particularly evident in the two parties' relationship with the truth. Not because, obviously, even before the embrace with Giuseppe Conte, the leaders of the Democratic Party did not say, like everyone else, their share of propagandistic exaggerations, half-truths and outright lies. It happened all the time that they made promises, did not keep them and then invented excuses.

What didn't happen was that after having claimed, say, a deficit of 2.4 percent of GDP, and having to backtrack, they put down a grotesque 2.04, counting on the fact that their voters would not notice the difference, which is exactly what the Five Star Movement did at the time of the first Conte government. And it is also, by changing the nothing that needs to be changed, what the leaders of the Democratic Party did yesterday with the progressive, nose-dive, descent of the numbers contained in their resounding declarations, starting with that incredible "Thanks to the over 14 million people who decided to vote" pronounced by Elly Schlein, to descend shortly after to the no less incredible card on the "13 million" compared with the 12 million votes collected by Giorgia Meloni in the political elections. It is useless to ask whether Schlein's "over 14 million" also include those who voted against or are simply an extreme form of rounding up.

The fact is that the Yes votes collected at most, in the most voted question, the one on reinstatement, 12 million 249 thousand 432 votes. The center-right, in the last political elections, 12 million 305 thousand 14. Therefore, even beyond the specious and incorrect nature of the comparison, which recalls the Renzian illusion of transforming the 40 percent of Yes votes in the constitutional referendum into the same number of votes in the political elections (and in fact it was seen), the alleged objective was not achieved even in this way (and this is probably why Schlein, differently from his party's card, speaks of people "who decided to vote", not who voted Yes, with the same satisfaction with which Rocco Casalino suggested writing 2.04 instead of 2).

Even more significant is that all these analyses of the vote, which I will spare you the anthology, from Francesco Boccia to Goffredo Bettini, never take into consideration the data from the referendum on citizenship, where the Yes votes, alas, were just nine million. The difference with the votes collected by Meloni in the political elections – while keeping in mind, let us repeat once again, that the comparison is totally absurd, incorrect and specious – is about three million votes. I find it hard to call it a neck and neck. Therefore, wanting to find an explanation that is not simply a taste for pure and simple lies, we must deduce that for the leaders of the Democratic Party that referendum does not represent the position of the center-left, perhaps because Conte himself had left freedom of vote on the matter. But then let's say it clearly. Explain to the voters that the new center-left led by the PD-M5S has no predefined position on citizenship, everyone will do as they think fit, while it is compact as a Macedonian phalanx on the cancellation of the labor laws passed ten years ago by the PD, and voted by almost all of its current leadership group. I may be wrong, but I continue to think that as long as the Democratic Party remains on this path, Meloni will be able to sleep soundly.

(Excerpt from the newsletter La Linea )

This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/analisi-schlein-risultati-referendum/ on Tue, 10 Jun 2025 05:29:25 +0000.