Schlein: PD plural party and pivot of the coalition. And the bigwigs armour his premiership

'We do not intend to resign ourselves to the model of personal parties, barracks parties or election committee parties, we are something else. The PD is an open, plural party'. And again: 'I also agree with those who say we must enlarge, the good news is that the majority has already expanded and even here in Montepulciano there are people who had made different choices at the congress. Now let us get organised for the last mile that separates us from the political elections. We are sons and daughters of all the political cultures that founded this party'.

Pd secretary Elly Schlein takes the floor at the end of the convention organised by her great electors in Montepulciano and strives to be as inclusive as possible, as Dario Franceschini, Andrea Orlando and Roberto Speranza demand. Who in the three days organised in the beautiful Tuscan village united their areas to create a single 'correntone' in support of Schlein. To strengthen her, of course, but also to 'advise' her and to assert their weight as former ministers and long-time leaders in the drafting of the programme for the next political elections and - also - in the drafting of the lists of candidates in Parliament. But there is no doubt that Schlein emerges strengthened from the weekend: the message delivered to M5s leader Giuseppe Conte is clear, 'the coalition's premier candidate is the secretary of the PD'. An armour-plating in view of the possible coalition primaries, if the reform of the electoral law will make it necessary to indicate the premier candidate on the ballot paper as it is in the wishes of the premier Giorgia Meloni, but also regardless of the primaries.

And it is an armour-plating that extends beyond the perimeter of the majority that led her to the leadership of the party three years ago: the leaders of the 'correntone' have in fact been joined by ex-Lettisonians Anna Ascani and Marco Meloni, Gianni Cuperlo, Dario Nardella and others. On the march towards the majority is then also the Popular Energy area that refers to party president Stefano Bonaccini, absent in Montepulciano but thanked not by chance by Schlein ("I thank president Bonaccini, unity is not done alone, we have worked tenaciously together"). And on closer inspection, even the reformist docs, those headed by Lorenzo Guerini and Giorgio Gori, who held their own conference on industrial policies in Prato during Montapulciano, are not questioning Schlein's leadership but are pushing to move the party's political proposal axis more to the centre. Schlein's inclusion goes as far as them: 'Interesting proposals emerge from Prato that will find space in the green paper she is putting together with Orlando.

The premiership within the PD appears firm, therefore. This is why Schlein, in her long speech, never mentions the competition with Conte. She takes for granted when the party's old Veltronian statute provides for it (the secretary is the premier candidate, precisely, and in the case of a coalition there are primaries) and recalls that 'the PD has confirmed itself as the first party of the coalition, the pivot of the alliance, as well as the first party in the thirteen regions that have gone to the vote in the last three years'. There is no room or intention to engage in polemics with the allies, and the criticism is all directed at the government and Prime Minister Meloni: from the Straits Bridge to the Mps takeover ('I have asked Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti to come and explain in the House'), passing on to school, health, the consent law that has seen Meloni and the majority backtrack, the family, and businesses.

Of course, Conte's ambition remains and his constant demarcations remain. But patience and far-sightedness are needed: to the M5s leader who announces the drafting of a programme of his own Schlein responds by launching a major listening campaign in the country to fine-tune the PDD programme ('so much so that, in the end, a synthesis will have to be found at the coalition table,' is the reading at Largo del Nazareno). One step at a time. There is still a year and a half to go before the political elections and the confirmatory referendum on the separation of careers in March must be passed without too much damage.