The centre-left does one thing but thinks of a hundred others.
Before, they had a real leader and held sham primaries; now they’re considering a sham leader so as not to hold proper primaries. One can already imagine the recruitment advert: “Seeking a figurehead for a dynamic coalition facing fierce internal competition; immediate availability and a willingness to step aside required; lack of ambition a plus. Winners need not apply”. The inside story – as reported by Valentina Pigliautile in Il Messaggero – suggests that the PD have come up with a bold yet clever idea. Since the centre-left is stuck in a deadlock between
Elly Schlein and Giuseppe Conte – from which there is no escape, just as there is no way out of certain provincial roundabouts – here is the solution:
a temporary figurehead to lead them into the elections. In short, an interim leader, a ‘placebo’ prime ministerial candidate, a leader on an unpaid work placement, a figurehead with a tacit renewal clause unless notice is given.You call him on Monday, hand him the coalition, he keeps it until Friday, then brings it back with a full tank. It’s an invention of some grandeur. Precarious employment, having devastated a generation, is finally being extended to the very top. Let us imagine the scene for a moment. The centre-left supporters gathered in the square, the flags, the emotion, and from the stage a voice saying, "Comrades, here is our leader – for now". Because that is precisely the point: the provisional leader is the ferryman who must not land anywhere; indeed, he must ideally row in circles, whilst on the shore Goffredo Bettini and four other people of proven wisdom, in the shadows, decide what needs to be done. There remains, however, a technical detail that nobody has wanted to raise, perhaps out of tact. In Italy, the provisional is the only form of the eternal. The post-earthquake shacks are temporary, the additional income tax surcharge is temporary, the national anthem is temporary; even Giuseppe Conte was temporary when he was chosen by Matteo Salvini and Luigi Di Maio. But these are perhaps mere fantasies. The only serious objection has, for now, been raised by common sense, which, however, does not seem to have a platform within the PD at the moment.
If the centre-left needs a leader who doesn’t set the political agenda in order to avoid choosing a leader who does set the political agenda, perhaps the problem isn’t the selection method but the alliance itself. However, you’ll agree, this is a vulgar, almost mainstream, defeatist line of thinking, whereas the other – the provisional leader, the ferryman, the living asterisk – is truly a marvellous idea. And like all marvellous ideas, it begins by creeping in, at night, in a room, amongst a few close confidants, and risks causing disaster the following morning when the voters make their presence felt. They are, as is well known, even more fickle, provisional, temporary and interim than the leader himself.
