Regional elections, break between Renzi and Calenda on the alliance with the M5s in Tuscany

The broad camp has a problem at the centre. Carlo Calenda disengaged from the alliance in Tuscany, accusing the Pd of having made a pact with the M5s with 'many ideological desiderata'. 'The Third pole,' Calenda reminded his former allies in Italia viva, 'campaigned for the Piombino regasifier and against citizenship income. Dear Matteo Renzi, we are in Parliament because the voters voted for this programme, not Taverna's. To Action this is enough'. This is not how Matteo Renzi sees it, who urges Calenda to give way, in the name of bipolarity and the need to present a common front against the centre-right ("if we believe in bipolarity, it is obvious that we must ally ourselves with companions who are also far from our ideas"). And from the party of the former premier came the invitation to 'stand together' to build 'a common house of the centre-left: dear Carlo, if you continue to divide as with the Third Pole, it will be yet another lost opportunity'.

So the tug-of-war between the two souls of the now defunct Third Pole returns, a dynamic in which the centre-right's courtship of Azione fits in, especially in Campania and in view of the long march towards the local elections in Milan.

While waiting for Antonio Decaro's candidacy to be unblocked in Apulia, in the last few hours there has been a discussion between the centre-left leaders, including Elly Schlein and Giuseppe Conte, in which they talked above all about Calabria: on Saturday the coalition's regional table will meet and on that occasion the candidacy for governor of Pasquale Tridico, the M5s MEP on whom a solid convergence has now been built. With the exception of the doubts expressed by Italia viva, which could fall in the light of Renzi's words on the need not to abandon the camp "because of the presence of the Five Stars and the Avs", in order not to give "the centre-left to the radical left and the country to the trimurti Meloni, Salvini, Lollobrigida".

The picture in Tuscany will have to be clarified by the middle of next week, by when Eugenio Giani has called a coalition meeting, the first with all the parties supporting him in the hunt for an encore in the elections on 12 and 13 October (the TAR has rejected the appeal by Democrazia sovrana popolare against the decree that called for the vote). Meanwhile, in the rival ranks, Alessandro Tomasi (FdI) has to reckon with the perplexities on the composition of the civic list that will support him, raised by Forza Italia: "If it is to serve to take away votes, especially I speak for my party, it does not convince us," said the Azzurro regional secretary Marco Stella.

Similar perplexities, but with far more significant repercussions, remain on the Veneto front, where FdI and FI do not look favourably on a Luca Zaia list. Reasonings that are part of the tug-of-war between Giorgia Meloni's party and Matteo Salvini's on who should indicate the candidate to succeed the outgoing governor. A new summit between the leaders will be needed, but for the time being - several majority sources assure - one is not expected soon in Puglia, where the premier is spending a few days on holiday.