Late on Thursday evening, at the Festa dell’Unità in Reggio Emilia, reporters approached
Elly Schlein and asked her whether there should be a leadership contest. “The programme comes first,” replied the secretary. They then asked her whether Matteo Renzi was part of the centre-left coalition, and whether Alessandro Onorato was included too. And she – that is, Elly – said: “The programme comes first.”
There is a strong suspicion that if they’d asked her what time it was, or whether she preferred the seaside or the mountains, the answer would have been exactly the same. “The programme first.” But the secretary’s reasoning is, in any case, beyond reproach, as is often the case with her: the primaries will come after the programme. The programme will be drawn up by those in the coalition. And the programme will determine who is part of the coalition.
One must admit that one could spend hours watching this contraption devised by the Nazareno – a bit like those toys where the ball returns to its starting point with every turn. It follows, however, with some practical implications, that the leader too will have to be chosen on the basis of new criteria. Having not written the manifesto, having not been able to inspire it, and not being authorised to amend it, the prime ministerial candidate will have no choice but to demonstrate that he can read it aloud. His posture, his breath control whilst reading subordinate clauses, and the elegance with which he tackles the chapter on Ukraine without the public realising it will therefore be assessed. In the broad coalition, no doubt, they have thought of everything. One detail remains, of course: namely, that for the manifesto to be written, it would need the coalition; yet, as Schlein explains, the coalition only comes into existence after the manifesto. This is a serious difficulty, for which nature, however, offers a reassuring precedent. There are, in fact, animal species that reproduce by parthenogenesis, without mating, thereby saving a great deal of negotiation. The ‘broad coalition’ programme will therefore appear one morning. Born of itself, without fathers and therefore without dissidents. It is clear that Schlein has studied biology.
After all, this is what aphids do, as do certain bees, some Caucasian lizards, and above all an animal that has always inhabited the Italian coastline: Bacillus rossius, which textbooks refer to as the ‘stick insect’. There you have it. The stick insect also possesses a further quality that explains why the species has survived intact to the present day. Let us read from Jean-Henri Fabre’s book *Souvenirs entomologiques*: “It spends its life clinging to a branch, motionless, looking exactly like the branch itself, and when a predator approaches, it does not flee but sways ever so slightly, as if a gentle breeze were passing by. If it is brushed against, it lets itself fall and pretends to be dead.” Does that remind you of anyone?
