The left is still without a foolproof candidate

The story of Valter Lavitola’s bomb-throwing love affair with his friend Sigfrido Ranucci – pursued through means that were not always orthodox – offers observers various ways of interpreting the events. One interpretation is the one we are all familiar with, concerning the legal aspects of the case. Why those explosions? And to what end? For what purpose? With what motive? With what complicity? The second perspective, less explored but no less interesting, concerns the sentiment underlying Lavitola’s choice and the sole certainty in this explosive story. Lavitola, as we know, was fond of Ranucci. We do not know whether his affection was unconditional or conditioned by some operational symmetry linked to Ranucci’s work. We do know, however, that Lavitola dreamt of seeing his friend Ranucci enter the political arena, and we know that his desire to see Ranucci there stemmed from a political assessment that concerned not only Lavitola’s own thinking but also that of a significant section of the progressive ruling class. 

Nanni Moretti, Valter Lavitola’s neighbour, whose home is not far from the legendary and excellent Cefalù Bistrò in Rome, would perhaps continue to sum it up like this, as he did many years ago in Piazza Navona: ‘With these leaders, we’ll never win.’ The need to find a solution – even the most creative, the most explosive one – to give the centre-left a few more cards (we were about to write ‘cartridges’) to try and be competitive is not limited to the attempt to build Ranucci’s candidacy through bombs filled with love (perhaps) and polls conducted with the heart (with contributions from Stefano Cappellini and Paolo Mieli, though they were unaware that Lavitola’s poll was intended to try and launch Ranucci as a prime ministerial candidate). But it lies in many facets of the public debate surrounding the construction of an alternative to Giorgia Meloni. It is rightly said that the centre-right has decided to change the electoral law out of fear of losing to the centre-left under the current law. But what should be added to this observation is that the centre-right’s fear of losing (assuming the electoral law is passed) is no less than the centre-left’s fear of losing today. The temptation to back Ranucci – on the part of Lavitola, but also on the part of a section of the political landscape that for years has drawn inspiration from the Five Star Movement – is merely part of a larger mosaic, at the centre of which lie familiar scenes, repressed scenes and scenes yet to be investigated. The familiar scenes are those we see every day and coincide with the proliferation of figures who could potentially offer an alternative to Elly Schlein and Giuseppe Conte, coming mainly from the party currently most active in the search for alternatives to the two leaders with whom a section of the centre-left fears it cannot win the elections. We are talking, of course, about the ‘party of mayors’ – that section of the centre-left leadership that would give anything to see a symmetrical step back within the progressive camp, allowing a mayor with experience of governing alongside the PD and the M5S to step forward. Two names stand out above all others: Roberto Gualtieri, Mayor of Rome, and Gaetano Manfredi, both of whom served as ministers in Conte’s government between 2019 and 2020. Within the ‘party of mayors’, moreover, there is another, more ambitious – though we do not know whether more fanciful – faction at work, one that is banking on the rise of a woman who, unlike the two mayors just mentioned, has never been part of a ‘yellow-red’ government, but who would have the chance to do what neither Gualtieri nor Manfredi could do in seeking an explosive alternative, even without ‘love bombs’, to a leadership modelled on Schlein and Conte: obviously, Silvia Salis, who from October – in time to make her mark ahead of any primaries – will tour Italy promoting her book (a book will also be published in October by Alessandro Onorato, Rome’s high-flying councillor with enormous ambitions and his sights set, with great optimism, on crossing the three per cent threshold). ‘With these leaders,’ as Nanni Moretti would say, ‘we’ll never win’, and in a sense this was the point made months ago, during a private dinner, by a heavyweight at the Quirinale, Francesco Saverio Garofani, whose table-talk – reported by La Verità and dismissed by Garofani as ‘chit-chat amongst friends’ – spoke of a hoped-for ‘shake-up’ and an intervention by ‘providence’ to find an alternative to the leadership deemed (by Garofani) uncompetitive within the centre-left. Lavitola dreamt of Ranucci. The mayors dream of a Manfredi or a Gualtieri. A section of the PD dreams of a Salis. Garofani dreams of a figure similar to Ernesto Maria Ruffini, who has just announced his intention to stand in the primaries. Another section of the PD dreams of a Conte candidacy, and that section of the PD is using the Covid commission to send love notes to Conte. The party of the candidate who isn’t there – which exists even without a candidate – is hoping for alternatives capable of emerging out of the blue, by surprise, all of a sudden, even without love letters, such as Pier Luigi Bersani or Rosy Bindi. Some hope that the alternative will emerge through the primaries; others hope that the alternative will emerge without primaries; still others hope to avoid the primaries altogether and choose an alternative only after the election, in the event of a narrow victory for the centre-left. Everyone knows, however, that there is a precise script that could lead to a ‘panic operation’. An opinion poll in Corriere in October, with the PD stuck at around 20 per cent. A subsequent poll, testing alternative candidates to Conte and Schlein. A final poll, confirming that another male or female candidate is more competitive against Meloni. The legal aspects of the Lavitola case will all need to be explored, uncovered and verified. But Lavitola’s starting point is the same one that is on the minds of many heavyweights in the progressive camp: the centre-right is more competitive than one might think, Vannacci or no Vannacci. And so, can one really blame those who argue that the centre-left, Ranucci or no Ranucci, simply does not yet have a foolproof candidate?