Schlein is set to relaunch from Puglia in September (crossing paths with Meloni). And she has postponed the party conference

Elly Schlein is looking into plans for the post-summer restart. There is a meeting scheduled for 6 September in Martina Franca. And an agreement, which is about to be finalised, to postpone the PD Congress until after the general election.

In Puglia in early September, in the Francesco Boccia area, the regional Festa dell’Unità is scheduled to take place. We’ll have to wait a few more hours for the official programme, but the secretary will be there; she’ll arrive in President Antonio Decaro’s region two days after Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni – who usually spends her holidays in these parts – and has chosen Bari for the event that will celebrate her government as the longest-serving.

A useful opportunity, at least in media terms, to reignite that confrontation with Meloni, which has faded in recent days, partly due to the parliamentary vote on the NEC and that joint resolution spearheaded by Giuseppe Conte (much to the fury of the reformists). The M5S leader also stole the limelight with the Delmastro case, which the M5S has hammered home, complete with a social media campaign. And most recently with yesterday’s exchange with the Prime Minister, following the Covid hearing,

Schlein, however, is not making a fuss; her final push – as those closest to her assure us – will come, but later on. In the meantime, amidst discussions on the programme and roadmaps for the primaries, she is focusing on resolving other internal issues, starting with the PD Congress. According to Article 8 of the PD’s constitution, the party president is required to convene the assembly six months before the secretary’s term of office expires. Schlein’s term expires on 12 March 2027: in short, the congress should be convened within a month. It is up to Stefano Bonaccini to do so. But it will in all likelihood be postponed, following the approval of an internal rule stipulating that ‘in a general election year, the congress is held after the elections have taken place’. This is what several PD sources have explained to Il Foglio.

In any case, this is an agreement – between Schlein, the PD president and the other factions within the party – which will have to take all sensitivities into account: that of the very influential Montepulciano faction (Franceschini-Orlando-Speranza), formed to support Schlein, or – according to the more cynical observers – to place her under special administration; a faction that one day thinks of the party unifier and the next – in Franceschini’s own words – says “there is no alternative to primaries”. The reformist faction led by Lorenzo Guerini and Giorgio Gori, and then the faction aligned with Bonaccini himself (which has now moved into the party’s majority). A party congress, on the other hand, would represent yet another problem for the PD, already grappling with Conte’s constant pre-emptive moves, regardless of an outcome that currently seems a foregone conclusion, in the spirit of continuity. In the name of unity and guarantees regarding the upcoming candidate lists, a postponement therefore appears not only to be the "most likely" solution, but also the most convenient one for everyone. At least until the results of the general election are known. After that, who knows.