Mayor Gualtieri is aiming for a broad coalition with the M5S and Azione, and an autumn in the style of Mamdani

Up there (at national level), it is still unclear which electoral law will be used for the vote, and there is no sign of a swift solution to the conundrum of ‘who will lead the broad – or very broad – coalition’. Down here, in the capital – which also faces an election year – the broad coalition is set to become, in perspective, a very broad one, starting with the Campidoglio, where the majority ranges from left-wing and environmentalist forces to Matteo Renzi, also encompassing the spectrum of centre-left civic groups and the socialists, with two-way talks currently underway with the Five Star Movement and Azione. And whilst the Democratic Party mayor Roberto Gualtieri, standing for re-election, is set to take stock of the situation with representatives of the aforementioned majority before the summer break, the line on the issue of alliances is one of ‘adelante con juicio’: proceeding step by step, defusing any potential problems, starting with those that are half-resolved (the foundation stone has already been laid for the waste-to-energy plant that the Five Star Movement did not approve of). And, aside from this major potential alliance that could bring Giuseppe Conte and Carlo Calenda together in Rome, in the Campidoglio area they ‘take for granted’ the emergence of a left-wing opposition list to Gualtieri, aligned with Potere al Popolo, but this ‘is not a cause for concern’.

Meanwhile, and not just recently, the campaign for Gualtieri’s re-election has kicked off online, where, via the ‘Per Roma con Gualtieri’ app, a model of widespread engagement in the style of Mamdani is being trialled, the Mayor of New York with whom Gualtieri has signed a memorandum of understanding to link Manhattan and the First Municipality: this involves listening to citizens, fundraising and ‘connecting neighbourhoods with institutions’, with a key event that will mark the real start of the re-election campaign: a live meeting with volunteers in September. Meanwhile, on the alliances front, it is no longer the waste-to-energy plant (the construction site for which, as mentioned, is now open), but the issue of opposing “overdevelopment” that is the key point of the PD–M5S dialogue, taking the form of a policy stake that the M5S would like to drive home. But in the meantime, the Roman summer is in full swing, which is why yesterday the mayor and the Councillor for Culture, Massimiliano Smeriglio, presented the “Il grande freddo” plan, featuring eleven cinemas showing free screenings and eleven libraries open to the public, transformed into climate-controlled refuges, with water distributed free of charge.