Calenda’s party will form an alliance with the PD in Rome, but in Bologna it is looking to Meloni

Rome. In the capital, after five years in opposition, he is throwing his weight behind Roberto Gualtieri. In Milan, the majority are listening to Chora’s podcasts, so there will be no primaries – they’re heading straight for Calabresi. In Bologna, however, Calenda is proposing Elisabetta Gualmini – a defector from the PD – who Giorgia Meloni also likes very much, indeed a great deal. And Meloni? She’s still courting him. She’s always courting him. Even though he, in the end, isn’t giving in.

In the general election, Azione is ‘right in the middle’. But in the meantime… imagine an election day (the most hoped-for and grandiose of scenarios). Now, just how much confusion would Azione’s ‘forest and coast’ strategy cause if there were a single polling day? The MPs and councillors of this small party – though the leading one in the centre – play down the doubts but then admit: if it were a single day – and Azione, in principle, would like that – it would be ‘a bombshell for five cities’. A potential bombshell, spelling the end of the Stabilicum? In the local elections, the party could back the centre-left candidate and help get them elected, whilst in the general election, standing alone in any single-member constituencies, it could take votes away from that same bloc or even from itself due to wasted votes. In short, with a single election day, the two choices would stand side by side on the voter’s mental ballot paper: the candidate to support for the local council and the other, for Parliament, against whom Azione might instead vie for victory. But beyond the far-fetched scenarios involving laws, dates, Calenda and timetables, the truly political – and, in a broader sense, human – reality remains in the background.

A touch of Chora in Milan, a bit of Roman soul, a portico in Bologna with Meloni and an endless flirtation that’s more of a dead end. In short, is Calenda’s ‘Azione’ in 2027 that of the perfumer?

Livio Gigliuto, chairman of Piepoli, explains that whilst Calenda’s voters are well-educated – and not Bonaccini’s ‘dummies’ – they are nonetheless unsettled by the confusion. “Not having a clear line at local level creates chaos if you then position yourself as the third party in the general election.” Although the real issue lies more in the composition of the vote.

Fifty per cent of Azione’s voters, explains Gigliuto, describe themselves as left-wing. Just under 40 per cent are right-wing. Only 10 per cent, however, are centrist. The ‘damned centre’ that Calenda claims to represent and which he says would follow him to every village in Italy (although 10 per cent of a total of 3 is rather meagre). Nonetheless, those most disturbed by this overture today are Calenda’s supporters on the left—those who cannot stand the scent of “Her”: Acqua di Giò. As Carmelo Caruso reported, in Schlein’s city—Bologna—Elisabetta Gualmini is considering a candidacy that is very much to the liking of Fratelli d’Italia. Meloni’s supporters are considering whether to back her straight away, openly, or tactfully in the run-off. And whilst they ponder this, the others – the left-leaning centrists – are weighing up, at national level, whether another centrist option might be preferable. All this whilst in Rome the PD is in the lead and in Milan they are trying to avoid primaries: heading straight for Mario Calabresi.

In any case, as long as they keep sniffing around for alliances, the risk is that it is the Calendians themselves who will change their scent. Those on the centre-right, so as not to come across as a bunch of small-town folk. Those on the centre-left, because of the whiff of the far right in the cities.