Gualtieri’s ‘contromanovra’, speaking as a leader

Rome. “The electoral law? It’s unconstitutional; we’ll appeal. The right? They want the Quirinale, but we’ll stop them. The elections? The Constitution is at stake. The government? The most centralist in history.” Elly Schlein is busy with party secretariats, mandate extensions and primaries; he isn’t. Roberto Gualtieri, Mayor of Rome, is already in election campaign mode. He attacks the government on every front and speaks like a leader: “We’ll return to government, we’ll reintroduce cash limits and we’ll overcome other fiscal policy disgraceful measures such as the flat tax.” His zeal is such that he even has a ‘counter-budget’ up his sleeve. The government was offering a 17-cent reduction on excise duties (amounting to 5 billion over a year); Gualtieri wants to spend this on strengthening local public transport: “It’s a limited cost, within the scope of any budget,” he says. With 3, he claims he can guarantee all Italians a travel pass for 50 euro a year – 4 a month. With the rest, he wants to improve the service. In the hall – at the conference organised by ALI (the association of mayors chaired by Gualtieri) – listening to him are his fellow mayors of Naples and Bologna, Gaetano Manfredi and Matteo Lepore, the former Chief of Police Franco Gabrielli – who claims “Democratic security is my copyright” – and also the former minister Anna Finocchiaro. What will he make of the ongoing debate within the PD? He raises an eyebrow: “Why? Is there a debate?” After all, this is the other PD – the one bored by the chatter about the primaries and seeking solutions to the country’s real problems. Whilst Elly Schlein and Giuseppe Conte may be the leaders on talk shows, for this down-to-earth group of people, eager to return to government, the leader is someone else: Gualtieri. (gdr)