Carnations case, if the real 'conspiracy' is against Schlein and not Meloni

What if the conspiracy glimpsed by Fratelli d'Italia behind the words of Quirinale advisor Francesco Garofani was not against Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni but against PD leader Elly Schlein?

To put it bluntly: once the dust has settled on the unprecedented friction between Palazzo Chigi and the Hill, the hoped-for 'shake-up' and the invoked intervention of 'providence' seem to have in their sights more Schlein, considered in the circles of the former PD (and not only) populars inadequate to lead a truly competitive centre-left in view of the 2027 general elections, than Meloni. With whom, it should be remembered, the tenant of the Hill has had a fruitful relationship of cooperation since the beginning of the legislature on the most important front in this phase, that of foreign policy: no one more than Sergio Mattarella has helped the Prime Minister to hold the Euro-Atlantic line and support for Kiev, a line from which she has never so far deviated despite the ambiguity of the relationship with Matteo Salvini's League and the difficulties with the current US administration.

In short, the 'shake-up' recklessly evoked by Garofani during a private occasion might not serve to oust Meloni from Palazzo Chigi but rather Schlein from Largo del Nazareno. On the other hand, it is no mystery that Garofani has a political history, as is normal, and that he has militated in the same Christian Democrat 'current' as the President: in the Ppi, Margherita, Ulivo and then the Pd, of which he was a member of parliament. The political fact is not that Garofani has a political history, but that he considers the current leadership of the PD to be inadequate, too crushed on radical positions and the M5s and at risk of weakening the Euro-Atlanticism that has always characterised the party.

The concern in democratic circles close to the Hill is real and has now come out into the open: former prime ministers Paolo Gentiloni and Romano Prodi have more than once warned in recent weeks that there is currently no alternative to the right led by Meloni and that it is necessary to 'deradicalise' the centre-left's political offer in order to return to speaking to the Catholic and moderate world, as well as to the middle class and productive classes in the North, in order to hope to win the 2027 general elections. And thus, consequently, to hold the deck of cards when Mattarella's second term in the Quirinale expires in January 2029. Like Gentiloni and Prodi, a frequent visitor to the President such as the last secretary of the Ppi Pierluigi Castagnetti, as well as another big name of the past democratic season such as Luigi Zanda, also think so.

And Lorenzo Guerini, the most important of the President's Dem 'soldiers' still in Parliament (the expression was used by Enrico Letta when he was called by Giorgio Napolitano to serve as Prime Minister after the failure of the attempt to set up a Pd-M5s government by the then Dem secretary Pier Luigi Bersani), thinks the same way. It is no coincidence that Guerini, former Minister of Defence and now President of Copasir and a proud Euro-Atlanticist, was among the promoters - along with Giorgio Gori, Graziano Delrio, Pina Picierno, Lia Quartapelle, Filippo Sensi and others - of the birth of the new ultra-reformist 'Crescere' current at the end of October. This current was not by chance blessed by Prodi and will meet again at the end of the month in Prato, at the same time as the Montepulciano convention of the so-called pro-Schlein 'correntone' of Dario Franceschini, Andrea Orlando and Giuseppe Provenzano. They too, off the record, doubt whether Schlein can be a viable candidate in the competition with Meloni.