Broad Camp divided by ballot referendum: Schlein heading for a weekend of passion

United we win! Little more than a week has passed since the first-round victory of the centre-left in extra-large format (from M5s to Avs to the centrists of Azione and Italia Viva, passing, of course, through the PD) in Genoa with the civic Silvia Salis and in Ravenna with the Dem Alessandro Barattoni. Yet it seems but another era. It is enough to look at Matera and Taranto, the other two provincial capitals where the ballot will be held on Sunday and Monday.

In the city of Lucania, the Dem candidate Roberto Cifarelli, who led in the first round with over 40% of the vote, has not received nor will he receive the endorsement of the M5s candidate Domenico Bennardi ("we will not support anyone or make any alliances, we leave it up to our voters," he had taken care to declare immediately after collecting about 8% of the vote). And in Taranto, the Dem Piero Bitetti, ahead with almost 40% of the vote, is still waiting for the endorsement of the M5s candidate, journalist Annagrazia Angolano (10%). 'I reiterate: there is no agreement or affiliation with mayoral candidate Bitetti, I will remain in opposition,' Angolano said in recent hours. However, he left the door open to the hypothesis of inviting voters to vote for Bitetti if the latter were to accept a whole series of points 'for the good of the city'.

Signs that remind the Dem secretary Elly Schlein, if there was still a need, of the M5s' resistance to integrating into a stable alliance and the even stronger resistance to converging on PD candidates. But the ballots will not be the only test of the first weekend of June for Largo del Nazareno. Together with the ballots, they will also vote for the five referendums that remain standing after the Constitutional Court swept away the question on differentiated autonomy by the League: the one on citizenship to lower the residence time for the request from 10 to 5 years, the one on work accidents and the three that cancel what remains of the renzian Jobs Act. And even here the oppositions are in a free-form, so to speak: M5s leder Giuseppe Conte has left freedom of conscience on citizenship and has come out in favour of yes on the other four questions, the opposite of Action leader Carlo Calenda. And if the official line of the Schleinian Pd is for five yeses, it is the Pd itself that is divided. The prevailing line of the minority reformists, who do not feel like abjuring the labour reform that ten years ago was supported by the entire party, is for two yeses (citizenship and accidents at work) and three noes (the questions concerning various aspects of the Jobs act, precisely). But there are also those who, among the Dems, are for only voting in favour on citizenship and not withdrawing the other four ballots. With former premier Paolo Gentiloni even not deciding whether to vote. And with former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, the 'father' of the Jobs act, who somewhat cumbersomely gave these voting indications: yes to the question on citizenship, no to the question on redundancies and contracts with increasing protection on redundancies and to the one on the reintroduction of causal reasons in fixed-term contracts and freedom to vote on the other two questions, the one on responsibility in case of accidents at work and the one on redundancies, and related compensation, in small businesses.

But what worries Schlein, more than the internal dissent, is the point at which the bar of participation in the vote will stop: given that the quorum of 50% plus one of the eligible voters (over 25 million people) has now been lost, the objective is to bring about 12 million people to the vote, i.e. the same number of voters who chose the centre-right at the last elections. A signal to the government, in short, which would however turn into a (bad) signal to the PD and the centre-left if participation were to stop below or around 10 million.

As if that were not enough, the left's divisions remain over foreign policy. Overcoming the divisions on Ukraine, with the M5s and Avs still firm in their no to sending arms, Schlein managed to reunite with Conte and with Nicola Fratoianni and Angelo Bonelli under the banner of Gaza. But the initiatives immediately became two: the one by Pd, M5s and Avs in Rome on 7 June and the counter-event in Milan organised by Azione and Italia Viva in a theatre. What prevented a single united demonstration were, from the centrists' point of view, the unwillingness to make explicit in the platform written on the left a harsher condemnation of Hamas, as well as the fear that the imprint given would lend itself to accusations of anti-Semitism. Without an agreement on the point, Renzi and Calenda decided to disassociate themselves by organising the Milan event. As a result, the entire reformist area of the PD announced that they would participate in both initiatives, as did the radicals of Più Europa.