Arturo Parisi: “Speranza’s provocation regarding the primaries is infuriating; he’s throwing it all away. Enough of this wasting of time”

"Rather than making me smile, Speranza’s provocation made me angry. In an argument full of worthwhile points, why spoil it like that?" Arturo Parisi, former Minister of Defence and one of the architects of the Ulivo – the centre-left alliance that actually worked – seems unable to stomach the resurgence of the ‘primaries yes, primaries no’ debate at all. “It’s like proposing Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize,” the professor tells Il Foglio. “To sidestep the issue,” he continues, “by going into next year’s elections with a young lad who’s barely seventeen today or a partisan approaching his hundredth birthday – who was more or less fifteen on that glorious 25 April – as if either of them could ever reach an agreement with the PD’s main ally.”

He discusses the broad coalition and the primaries. He defends them and presses the key figures: “We need to speed things up. How can we hope to resolve potential conflicts by adding fuel to the fire of real disagreements?” According to Parisi, the contest between Schlein and Conte is not just open – it is wide open. But: “The time has come for the two main leaders to talk to each other, looking each other in the eye”, starting with foreign policy and the leadership of the coalition. And to the Democrats he says: "Stop playing clever", because otherwise "our last hope is that the others make more mistakes than we do". There is confusion on the left. And following Speranza’s interview with Corriere, even the cornerstone of the primaries seems to have been called into question.

“As if there weren’t enough problems already…”, says Arturo Parisi. “With the elections now looming and the centre-right struggling, the PD’s faction leaders seem to be inventing a new one every day to weaken that broad coalition which, despite the passing years, they have still not managed to give a name or a political rationale – other than opposing the return of fascism without any reference to the future.” He is taking the party to task. But the former Health Minister’s words imply a not-too-veiled fear that the PD’s secretary, the natural candidate, might not win the primaries. Or at least that is the impression.

This is a possibility that the former Defence Minister does not rule out: “Even though Conte appears to have the upper hand because he got off to an earlier start with greater determination and a more uncompromising approach, I think the race is not just open, but wide open.” In his view, the only certainty is that those “PD faction leaders, by constantly raising the spectre of a defeat for the woman who, in their own words, is their candidate – a defeat they claim can only be averted through ‘bloodbath’-style military tactics – end up spreading and reinforcing the idea that she might lose, thereby weakening her further with each passing day”.

But there is a further aspect: namely, that Speranza’s idea offers a way to avoid a dualism, a diarchy. That between Schlein and Conte. An interpretation that Parisi does not share at all. “I believe that the issue raised goes far beyond the problem of individuals. Even though, with the deadline almost upon us, the matter risks becoming dramatic, the former Health Minister’s remarks are extremely serious.” He speaks of the alliance’s identity: “Rather than the provocative proposal that concludes the interview, the crux of her argument lies in her opening statement: she wrote that the primaries ‘are a political mistake and should be avoided. We are sliding into this without having thought through the meaning and political consequences to the full’. A real party should have been discussing this for some time. A serious party should open up a debate, abandoning for once the culture of unanimity into which it has fallen far too often.”

The ‘real’ party Parisi refers to is also the party that emerged from the Olive Tree coalition, of which the professor is a co-founder. The primaries that crowned Prodi were the moment of its conception. And now, twenty years on, people are backing out. Isn’t that a paradox? “Far from it,” he says. Indeed, he explains that “it is no coincidence that the issue was raised by Speranza of all people”. He who was the secretary of Articolo Uno. "We must not forget that, alongside Letta – secretary of the old PD – Speranza, as secretary of Articolo Uno, is the co-founder and guarantor of the process that established the new PD, which in January 2023 allowed a non-member to become secretary of a party defined as breaking with the two founding parties. This, according to Parisi, is one “of the many shrewd manoeuvres that characterise the PD’s history”. The others: “Let us not forget, either, the promotion of Conte from an ally of Salvini to a ‘powerful figurehead for all progressive forces’. A ploy dating back to 2019, but one which, unfortunately – and it pains me personally to admit it – has its roots in the ploys and duplicity that characterised the very path forged by the Olive Tree coalition in 1996, a full eleven years before the PD was founded in 2007.”

The professor explains that “Speranza’s political opposition to the primaries is not an impromptu move but dates back a long way”. And this is because: “In the New PD agreed with Letta following the defeat of ’22, Speranza acted as guarantor for the faction that had split from Renzi’s PD to form Articolo Uno, following Bersani and D’Alema”. A faction, says Parisi, "which never truly believed in the ‘Olive Tree’ PD". Starting, he explains, "with the primaries that emerged in the wake of the proposal for institutional reform set out in point 1 of the 1996 Olive Tree programme – a product of the era of the first-past-the-post system and enshrined by the 1993 referendum". A thesis that Parisi wishes to revisit: “It proposed ‘the adoption of a form of government centred on the figure of the Prime Minister, appointed following a vote of confidence’, providing for ‘the inclusion on the ballot paper – alongside the candidate for the single-member constituency – of the party or coalition to which they belong and the candidate for Prime Minister designated by them’”.

According to Parisi, today the Ulivo and the ‘broad coalition’ are two distinct coalitions. “Our coalition envisaged and aimed for a leadership not tied to any of the parties comprising it – a leader and Prime Minister recognised as a unifying figure across the board. The model envisaged by Speranza, on the other hand, envisages a front of parties with a lead party whose secretary automatically becomes the coalition leader and, in the event of victory, head of government. Two legitimate concepts, but mutually exclusive.” For this reason too, the discussions were largely predictable: “The solution involving the appointment of a leader – whether through a summit agreement or through primaries – ultimately postponed decisions that we should have made at the outset.”

For this reason, the simplest question is: what must the broad coalition do now? “Try to speed things up as much as possible, in the hope of making up for the enormous amount of time lost – whether calculated from the start of Schlein’s leadership, or even more so from the impromptu events of summer 2019.” For the professor, the time has come for a face-to-face discussion: “Schlein and Conte must talk to each other, finally looking each other in the eye, tackling the issues on the table without skipping any: starting with foreign policy and the question of the coalition’s leadership.” This advice – or warning – comes with a stern rebuke: "If we carry on playing at being clever, constantly saying ‘As if!’ whilst concealing disagreements and feigning non-existent common ground – both between parties and within them, starting with the PD – our only and last hope is that the others make more mistakes than we do."