Conte’s headache is Virginia Raggi. She wants a seat, but he fears her

Rome. This time, the check risks turning into checkmate. All the more so when the queen is involved.

Virginia Raggi, the former mayor of Rome, is therefore Giuseppe Conte’s bane: the nagging worry that, in the run-up to the elections, is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid. Paola Taverna, who advises him, tells him not to give in. Francesco Silvestri, whom Conte listens to, is slightly more conciliatory. The crux of the matter, at this point, is that she wishes to put herself forward – quite legitimately – while he, as leader of the Movement, does not relish anyone who might overshadow him. And like Diogenes the Cynic, he asks Raggi to let him have the sun.

Virginia Raggi is considering a run for office in next year’s general election. Her ambition is to be expected. After five years in opposition at the Campidoglio – and with a solid base of support – it would be a matter of political logic. However, this now comes up against a factor of a more psychological nature.

“Conte doesn’t want her,” explain MPs from various political backgrounds, including members of the Five Star Movement. Giuseppe the Cynic can get rid of everything, they say – even the alliance with the PD – but he cannot give up being the one and only in the Movement. Nor can he tolerate, after Chiara Appendino, a figure even more charismatic than the former mayor of Turin. And even more combative.

Do you remember, in this regard, the twenty-one candidates for the presidency of the Five Star Movement? They were twenty-one men and women selected last year by the Movement’s Guarantee Committee. Among them were candidates who had not been elected in the local elections, as well as a woman named Maria who introduced herself thus: ‘Like Mary of Nazareth, I say: “Here I am”.’ They were the twenty-one ‘holograms’, and Conte’s challengers, in the style of Russian elections. The outgoing president had carefully selected them. One by one. And, generally speaking, one might say they fitted the profile of Mary more than the temperament of Virginia.

A year on, which is to say today, things are coming to a head. And Raggi, who has bided her time at the Campidoglio for five years, is meeting Giuseppe Conte with increasing frequency. Her television appearances, too, are another sign. So much so that today, caught between the primaries and the Melonellum, the president finds herself in a dead end.

Asking her to stay in Rome – as Conte knows – would in fact be not only pointless but even harmful. Raggi is the only one amongst the Five Star Movement councillors not to have endorsed the alliance with Gualtieri from the first round. More generally, the former mayor is the only one who is truly averse to the Democratic Party, to waste-to-energy plants, and to dithering over rearmament. In that sense, she is a kindred spirit to Appendino, yes, but even stronger and more radical. The risk, therefore, is that by removing her from Parliament, she will be turned against the city government. She could fragment the Roman Movement, threaten to go it alone, or shatter the consensus (in the 2021 local elections, the votes directly linked to her – including split-vote ballots – accounted for 15 per cent of the total, compared with 12 per cent for Calenda and just 5 per cent for Gualtieri, who was subsequently elected mayor). At this point, it might as well be better to increase the level of internal dissent in the Chamber of Deputies or the Senate. Conte is considering this, coming to terms with it. Perhaps it is better to risk having a real rival. But the question is: is it more in his interest to put her forward as the lead candidate or simply on the list, with preferential votes? In the first case, Virginia Raggi’s election would be certain. In the second scenario, even worse, the former mayor could secure enough votes to turn the tables. Meaning she would not, in any way, be bound by obedience and, all the more so, would never respond to Giuseppi as Mary of Nazareth did: ‘Here I am’? Thank you. But no, thank you.