I’ll tell you about Mattarella’s Moroteo style
Moves, words, photos and silences by Sergio Mattarella analyzed by the political notist Francesco Damato
I suspect that Sergio Mattarella, from a notoriously Morotean family such as his father Bernardo and his brother Pier Santi, has also inherited from Aldo Moro a predilection for photos. From which often the Christian Democrat statesman so barbarously killed in 1978 by the Red Brigades let himself be represented more than by the speeches, interviews or notes entrusted to his collaborators.
Mattarella, a few weeks ago entered the perfidious allusions of constitutionalists, political scientists, columnists and backstories displaced by the strong decision he made, at the end of a long, ambiguous and inconclusive government crisis, to send Mario Draghi to Palazzo Chigi for a solution that was also a turning point, to the point where the relations between the parties had arrived, wanted to be vaccinated in the most sensationally simple, ordinary and at the same time surprising way. He presented himself at the Spallanzani hospital in Rome, waited patiently for his turn with the others and left without bothering anyone.
This man, this President of the Republic would be – just think – the same one who according to Gustavo Zagbrebelsky, certainly not the last constitutionalist stopped in the street to comment on his choices, would have brought "democracy down from above", rather than let it rise "From below", making Draghi rule. He would be the president to whom, according to political scientist Piero Ignazi on Domani, the still secretary of the Democratic Party Nicola Zingaretti should have said loudly and loudly his no to the removal of Giuseppe Conte. Which would therefore have happened a little too hastily, if not authoritarian. According to the latest cartoon of the Fatto Quotidiano, he would be the president who would have promoted Draghi to "savior of the Fatherland" without first verifying the approval of the Italians, evidently sending them to the polls with masks. Perhaps the president would also be reassured by the call of an Army Corps general to lead the fight against Covid, with vaccinations and all the rest.
It takes fantasy, as well as ease, to disguise one's neighbor like this. And I use the disguise also thinking of Moro and what he said to the delegation of his former Dorothean current, of the DC, who had gone home to inform him in 1971 of the decision taken to run for the Quirinale, after Amintore Fanfani's race failed. , Senator Giovanni Leone instead of him, somehow politically damaged by the obvious support he would receive from the Communists. "You have put me on a suit that is not mine," Moro replied laconically. A few days earlier in the Transatlantic, in the Chamber, the Communist Giorgio Amendola had declared: "Many Christian Democrats came or sent to ask for our votes: all, except Moro".
Well, di Moro ousted by his Dorotei friends from Palazzo Chigi after the ordinary elections of 1968, although he closed with gains for the DC after four and a half years of uninterrupted government alliance with Pietro Nenni's PSI, everyone wondered in that summer whether and how he would react to the offensive of his party colleagues.
Charged by our respective newspapers, Paese sera and Momento sera, to follow Moro in his retreat in Terracina to steal some ideas from him, see who he met and understand what was boiling in the pot of the Scudocrociato National Council, convened for the autumn after the formation of the Giovanni Leone's second “seaside” government, Guido Quaranta and I were surprised by the extremely ordinary vacation of the former Prime Minister. Who every morning walked to the family on the beach fully dressed, in a suit and tie, played with the girls, sat on the deckchair and occasionally strolled along the seafront, followed on foot by the escort with the most faithful Leonardi. From which we were unable to obtain either a consent to approach it or a half-word response to our questions about the president's habits.
In the end we had to go back to Rome without a shred of news and report to our directors that Moro was very quiet with his family, leaving us free only to interpret his silences. Competitors but also friends, we exchanged the reactions of our newspapers, equally incredulous. A few days later the photos of a reporter on Moro in Terracina came to our rescue, alone and defying the heat with his clothes. There was also one with him in a bathrobe next to his wife: a pose that we had missed, or to which Moro had allowed himself only after not having seen us from a distance, hell of a man.
I learned that Francesco Cossiga had better luck than us after a few weeks. From which Moro allowed himself to be accompanied on a few strolls along the seafront, anticipating his decision to leave the Dorothy current to form his own and move to the internal opposition of the party, where there were more things to discuss: the youth protest, the communist revolt in Prague repressed by Soviet tanks, the trade union autumn.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/vi-racconto-lo-stile-moroteo-di-mattarella/ on Sun, 14 Mar 2021 06:59:16 +0000.