Cuperlo vs Renzi, the rebellion breaks out in the Democratic Party. But it is also the time for nostalgics –

Look Brunello

August 30, 2024

Too cultured, with that gently rolled r that accompanies his long thoughts, (sometimes even excessively so) to be able to tolerate someone hasty and “foul-mouthed” (after all, Tuscans are known), like Matteo Renzi. A political antipathy that began at the very beginning: Gianni Cuperlo did everything he could to slow down his run, even running against him (and losing) in the 2013 primaries, the ones that opened the doors of the Nazareno to the Florentine. Then a very long trail of clashes, sometimes even blatant, even if the Trieste native welcomed the first presidency of the national assembly of the Democratic Party of the Renzi era. From which he resigned (Matteo Orfini took over) a few months later with a letter that explains very well the nature of the relationship between the two: “I resign because I am shocked and alarmed by a conception of the party and of the debate within it that cannot bend towards homologation, of language and thought”. A “coherence” that the PD deputy dusted off the very day after the return near the home of the prodigal son: “Matteo Renzi went to the PD party in Pesaro where he said: “Don’t do to Elly what you did to me”. For my part, I have only one certainty and that is that Elly will never do what he did to us”.

On the other hand, the last secretary of the Fgci and the first of the Sinistra Giovanile is one of the main leaders of the anti-“heart game” group. A group that sees the large participation of Pierluigi Bersani’s “firm” (who abandoned the party, founding Art.1, in disagreement with the then secretary), and in silence, a good portion of the majority exponents, linked precisely to Elly Schlein, who would very much like to keep some veto. The dispute over the new “loves” of the Florentine risks reopening old wounds and new guerrilla warfare in the PD. On the other hand, the senator’s U-turn is too fast not to leave traces. And the hatred is too deep-rooted to be forgotten in a month. Just read the post of Bersani’s historic spokesperson, Chiara Geloni, to realize this: “Renzi no longer has any political strategy. Renzi has no added value and no marginal utility. He can’t go anywhere and he can’t do anything, only beg for a few places in the coalition of Pd, 5 stelle and Avs”, a blunt criticism. There are those who oppose him, with the support of Giuseppe Conte, and those who wait for him, with trepidation, to emerge from the shadow.

A return to the recent past then, anti-Renziani against Renzians, a classic match, like Inter-Juventus, which has characterized the last 15 years of the center-left, a film under the banner of “blood and tears”. The latter certainly include all the most illustrious parliamentarians of the minority: Lorenzo Guerini, Alessandro Alfieri, Francesco Verducci, Simona Malpezzi, Filippo Sensi, Simona Bonafè, Valeria Valente, Matteo Orfini. And in Europe Giorgio Gori, Pina Picierno, Elisabetta Gualmini, Alessandra Moretti, Matteo Ricci. With two first strikers in attack who in recent weeks have helped the secretary in the shadows to open up to the dear “enemy”: Stefano Bonaccini and Goffredo Bettini (the theoretician of the nameless enclosure to be reserved for the centrists). The minority, with the external support of the leader of Italia Viva, hopes to get out of the corner, and to break what an old leader of the dem ritual defines as “the unbearable cloak of Elly’s boys”. The most optimistic hope for a return to the Democratic Party: “With him the numbers would change, we all know Matteo’s ability as a seducer”. Whatever happens, it will not be a re-edition of “let’s love each other”.