Without communists or Catholics dem at the Quirinale, we would not have had the upheavals (anti-Cav) and the crowds (Monti, Draghi) of the last 30 years. And not even invasions of migrants and green passes. But the idea of a moderate candidate sends Renzi into a tailspin
Matteo Renzi calls the center-left together: we must prevent Giorgia Meloni to take the Quirinale. «He has discovered his cards», rant to networks and unified newspapers after the Prime Minister’s declarations on the possibility of replacing, upon the expiry of the mandate, Sergio Mattarella with a politician who is not progressive. “It’s aiming for Colle because Palazzo Chigi isn’t enough for it,” the alarmed former prime minister declares on every channel and in every newspaper, implying that the operation constitutes a kind of attack on the Constitution. What is wrong with thinking that the center-right could one day elect a head of state who is not from the left is not clear. But for Renzi this seems to be a question of life or death for democracy.
It matters little that in May 1999, when Massimo D’Alema was in government, the centre-left took everything, including the Quirinale, by electing Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. And it doesn’t even count the fact that in 2006, at the end of the mandate of the former governor of the Bank of Italy, who in his long career at the top of the institution had never forgotten his membership in the CGIL, the comrades – fresh from winning the elections – appointed Giorgio Napolitanoor a communist who applauded the invasion of Hungary. And it doesn’t even matter that when he, Matteo Renzi, was at Palazzo Chigi he got Sergio Mattarella elected thinking that a left-wing Christian Democrat on the Hill would facilitate his maneuvers to take everything.
Matteo Renzi’s alarm on the Quirinale and the reaction of the left
The truth is that for over 30 years the left dominated the country even when it lost the elections, exercising its influence through the Colle and forcing the Constitution.
First with Oscar Luigi Scalfaroa former Christian Democrat who, after the bribe scandal, found himself sensitive to the arguments of the judiciary and the Ulivo. Then with Ciampi, Napolitano and the current tenant of the Quirinale, alternating communists and Catholic communists at the top of the Republic. And now that, in the event of a centre-right victory, the possibility of replacing the current head of state with a conservative would arise, Renzi and his companions say they are worried and call for democratic vigilance.
Thirty years of presidential appointments and the balance of power
But what does it mean to have a left-wing or right-wing president of the Republic? The answer is easy, because it is enough to review the lessons (but above all the pressures) exerted over thirty years by progressive heads of state. Do you think that the action of the judiciary would have been the same if Scalfaro had not been on the Hill, who in 1994 not only stopped the Biondi decree, but favored the fall of Silvio Berlusconi and the birth of a president’s government led by Lamberto Dini? I think not. If Cossiga had been there we probably would have saved ourselves a reversal and maybe even something else. And if in 2011, instead of Napolitano, there had been someone from the centre-right on the Hill, do you think he would have made an effort to replace the Cavaliere with Mario Montiguaranteeing them a sort of shield with the nomination as senator for life?
Here too I think that things would have gone differently, just as I believe that with a head of state who did not have the original communist sin we would not have participated in the war in the Balkans or even in the one in Libya.
The role of the Quirinale in the latest government crises
Coming to more recent times, without Mattarella we would have avoided the government heap of 2021 and Italians would have been able to vote without being deprived of the right to work since green pass. We certainly shouldn’t have had to endure the dpcm of Giuseppe Contebut not even the pro-immigration sermons of the head of state and certain pardon measures (I am not referring to Nicole Minetti, but to the smugglers). And we would most likely have been spared the tirades in favor of Europe, even when the EU appears indefensible.
«Taking the Hill, because Palazzo Chigi is not enough» is not, as Renzi implies, a coup d’état or an authoritarian drift. It’s simply what the left has done for the last 30 years. With the difference that the comrades conquered the Hill to prevent the governments chosen by the Italians from doing what they had promised to the voters, while the centre-right intends to implement with the consent of the Quirinale what he asked for votes for.
