The Meloni–Schlein alliance: electoral reform and the election date

Silvia Salis, the mayor who in the spring described the primaries as a mistake and in September reiterated her desire to remain in Genoa, has now let Elly Schlein know that she ‘might’ even decide to unite the centrist parties and ‘might’ even stand as a candidate in the coalition’s primaries. She might. This is exactly what the PD secretary had asked her to do weeks ago, and she has now reverted to the conditional tense, after Salis glimpsed, amidst the clauses of the electoral reform approved yesterday, the silhouette of someone who remains on the sidelines whilst others take part.

For Schlein, however, Genoa’s half-measure is good news, because the group comprising Renzi, Onorato, Ruffini, Magi and Gabrielli – along with the maverick Calenda – is a gathering of captains on a boat without a helmsman, a mixture of water and oil that might perhaps become an emulsion only thanks to the newcomer Salis. As a candidate in the primaries, she would also help Schlein against Conte. Except that the mayor of Genoa possesses Hamlet’s most precious quality: that of transforming every decision into a hypothesis and every hypothesis into a long, watchful, almost gentle meditation on the hypothesis itself.

The fact remains that Meloni’s electoral law – the one Schlein fought against – suits the PD secretary just fine, because it obliges coalitions to nominate the prime minister and thus to go through the primaries she desires. At this stage, it is hard not to see an implicit pact here, with the Prime Minister having chosen the secretary as her opponent. Some argue that Meloni could offer further assistance by seeing out the parliamentary term, giving Schlein time to distance herself from Conte. In a story full of conditionals, perhaps the only indicative form is used by them – the two enemies who want the same thing.