Renzi’s dilemma: standing as a candidate in the broad-based primaries

 In the summer of Christopher Nolan’s “Odyssey”, he is launching the ‘Leopolda’ Ulysses model (3–4–5 October). Matteo Renzi says he wants to “return to, reclaim and regain Ithaca”. Or perhaps the centre-left? That is the former prime minister’s temptation. A remote possibility – and Renzi is working to avoid it – but not impossible: standing in the primaries. The leader of IV has always said that he will field his own candidate at the polling stations, with a precise profile: a mayor, a reformist with a proven track record. Silvia Salis, Gaetano Manfredi? There has also been talk of Giorgio Gori. But no name has been put forward yet. And so here is the suggestion.

Last Friday, Renzi launched his Leopolda event, which is due to take place in early October and will be dedicated to Ithaca. It will be a time for ‘reflections and proposals’, including those emerging from the ‘Primaries of Ideas’ – the policy tour across Italy through which the former Prime Minister has sought to broaden his reformist platform, whilst also engaging civil society. Unsurprisingly, those in the IV camp are keeping a close eye on the ongoing dispute within Più Europa between Riccardo Magi and Benedetto Della Vedova, the latter of whom would like to align himself with the former Prime Minister.

Renzi is biding his time and, in the meantime, to stem the effects of the Schlein–Conte rivalry, is proposing ‘ironclad pacts’ for the primaries. He is touring the Feste dell’Unità events – on Friday he was in Villanova with Michele De Pascale, and will soon be in Bologna – to explain that ‘without the centre, you can’t win’. From Florence, the former prime minister will launch his own challenge to Meloni’s right-wing camp, as a springboard ahead of the general election. He had intended for the event to also serve as the platform from which to announce the IV-Casa Riformista candidate at the ‘campo largo’ campaign stalls. The “perfect profile”, for Renzi, remains that of an administrator (or former one), a mayor such as Silvia Salis, who has recently dropped a few hints about her move onto the national stage – her book is also due out soon – but officially insists she is thinking “only of Genoa”. And she has always said she is opposed to the open-air polling stations. Even the path leading to Naples’ mayor, Manfredi, seems complicated. Other candidates will be considered, but the senator from Rignano – who knows a thing or two about primaries, from personal experience – insists he does not want to pull anyone’s strings. So the idea has even cropped up in his thinking of stepping forward personally, by surprise, to challenge the other leaders of the left. Is this Renzi’s Odyssey? A suggestion, perhaps a temptation. But sometimes that’s exactly how it all begins.