Democratic Party (PD) leader and
ex-premier Matteo Renzi "hasn't even phoned" dissenting minority
leaders to avert a looming split in the centre-left group,
confidant and Transport Minister Graziano Delrio said in an
overheard remark Friday.
"How the f**k don't you make a phone call in a situation like
this," Delrio said during a meeting on Rome's public transport
system.
Later, however, Delrio clarified what he thought, saying
"Matteo made an appeal (in a newspaper interview) to take alibis
away (from the minority), much more than a phone call".
In the newspaper interview earlier, Renzi appealed to the
leftwing minority not to split and instead express its views at
an assembly on Sunday called to decide the date of a party
congress.
"Don't go, come, take part, the doors are open, no one is
ejecting anyone, let's start talking about Italy again," he said
in the interview with Corriere della Sera.
On Facebook, later, he said: "We must stop talking about
issues that only interest Roman palazzi. And start giving
solutions to Italian's problems again."
Culture Minister Dario Franceschini, head of a middle-ground
faction, tried a last-minute mediation, saying a split now would
be "incomprehensible" and urging Renzi to concede some ground on
the date of the party congress and a general election, as well
as his alleged bid to turn the PD into a personal party.
"Those who have most responsibility must also be the most
generous, and make the biggest effort," he said.
On the leftwing minority side, PD leadership candidate
Michele Emiliano, the governor of Puglia, said "Renzi is
Napoleonic, and so he's heading for some Waterloos.
"Let him avert the biggest disaster of the European left. The
solution is one step away, it would be enough to hold the
congress in May".
Emiliano said later PD will not split if Renzi grants a
request from the minority to hold primaries in September.
"I'm going to try and call Renzi, seeing that he's not
calling us.
"If he says yes there'll be no split," said Emiliano.
Renzi's plea to avert a split will not achieve that goal, one
of the other minority leaders, PD MP Gianni Cuperlo, said.
"It's not going to be a newspaper interview that fixes it.
"You need humility...a leadership group meets...to say the
harshest things to one's face and see how to go on".
Renzi wants a congress in April and a general election in
September.
The minority, which includes former leader Pier Luigi Bersani
and two other leadership candidates, Tuscany Governor Enrico
Rossi and former House whip Roberto Speranza, want a congress to
be put off and Premier Paolo Gentiloni to serve out the
government's term until February next year.
Gentiloni, also of the PD and former foreign minister in
Renzi's government, replaced Renzi as premier when the PD leader
resigned following an unexpectedly heavy defeat in a
Constitutional reform referendum in December.
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