Premier Matteo Renzi has
called for new rules on the way the centre left chooses its
candidates to ensure that the losers do not scupper the
campaigns of the winners after defeat.
He said in an interview for a new book by veteran TV
journalist Bruno Vespa that primaries should be staged for
candidates for top positions such as "mayors, governors and the
party leader-premier candidate".
But he added that "those who lose must help".
"You can either decide to run them (primaries), and in
that case they cannot be fake, or you can let the party choose
its candidates," he said.
Renzi's reflections may have been prompted by the
experience of centre-left primaries in Liguria this year.
Former Bologna mayor and CGIL union leader Sergio
Cofferati left Renzi's Democratic Party (PD) amid claims of
irregularities after losing to Raffaella Paita in regional
primaries in January.
Cofferati went on to back an alternative left-wing
candidate, Luca Pastorino, in regional elections and the centre
left lost, with centre-right candidate Giovanni Toti taking
34.4% of the vote, Paita 27.84% and Pastorino 9.41%.
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