How the municipal elections went according to the political notist Francesco Damato
Used for a lifetime to think and write that the absent, at least the voluntary ones, that is, not prevented by illnesses and other unfortunate circumstances, are always wrong because in the end they entrust the game to others, I happen at my beautiful age to doubt the assumption in the face of the record of abstentions, that is of desertion from the polls, recorded in this round of elections a little of every kind just held: municipal from north to south and from east to west, regional in Calabria and supplementary to the Chamber in Siena and Rome. “Vittoria a meta”, summarized and reproached the manifesto with the usual happy title to those who, rightly or wrongly, claimed ownership and merit of this victory.
I think, among the winners who raised their hand, fist, arms and so on, and waved flags, first of all the secretary of the Democratic Party Enrico Letta. Who, elected to the Chamber in a Tuscan college in which 35 out of 100 voters went to the polls, can finally return to the “serene” Montecitorio, as Stefano Rolli represented him in the XIX Century, not as in the time of Matteo Renzi at the party secretariat , and boast of the cities preserved or conquered in the first round with the center-left, without or with the participation of what remains of the grillini: Milan, Bologna, Naples. He has every reason to be pleased, for heaven’s sake, but always halfway, as they say in the manifesto.
I think, always among the declared winners, of Silvio Berlusconi. Who, despite the overtaking suffered by his Forza Italia in Milan also by the Brothers of Italy of Giorgia Meloni, ready to overtake the leaguers as well next time, felt rightly proud of the primacy preserved in the Calabrian region. Where the center-right, as he now calls it complete with a dash to presumably translate into a pause while it is pronounced, has beaten competitors and opponents, honoring the memory of the late president Iole Santelli. But, I repeat, we are always the “halfway point” victory for that accursed disaffection that dominates it. And that Antonio Gramsci from the left, with the fascism that had taken advantage of it, defined in his time “indifference”, adding the adjective “hateful”.
I also think of Giorgia Meloni who swells her chest for having brought the substantially unknown Enrico Michetti to the ballot in her Rome, but must now put up tents in front of the Sanctuary of Divine Love to pray that the Madonna will give her a hand to convince the good Carlo Calenda to give her a hand in the second round. Senno will win the piddino Roberto Gualtieri with the votes of the grillini defeated with the outgoing mayor Virginia Raggi and with an unplugged, but very clogged nose.
Finally, I am thinking, always among the admittedly successful or satisfied, of a Giuseppe Conte who also finds himself presiding over a movement reduced to a minimum, in what Massimiliano Panerari in the Press has defined “the Caporetto of grillismo”, who has now disappeared in the north and concentrated , for positions of power more than for votes, in the Naples of Roberto Fico and Luigi Di Maio. However, it is always comforting for Conte to see Marco Travaglio write about him in the Fatto Quotidiano that “among the various former prime ministers in circulation, he is by far the most appreciated by the” people “. The quotation marks to the people were put by Labor himself, adding with unusual prudence that “that memory does not last forever”. On the other hand, it too is worth “the goal”, like everything else.
