Culture Minister and ruling
centre-left Democratic Party (PD) bigwig Dario Franceschini on
Wednesday said "something has been broken" between the PD and
its voters under leader Matteo Renzi, and "it must be repaired"
before next year's general election.
The PD fared badly in mayoral run-offs across Italy on
Sunday, with the centre right taking 12 mayors from it, even in
traditional strongholds like Genoa, Pistoia, Piacenza and Sesto
San Giovanni, 'Italy's Stalingrad'.
Renzi, who has been accused of shifting the PD too far to the
centre, said squabbling on the centre left, which has seen the
leftwing MDP split from the PD, was to blame, and ruled out
broad alliances with the left that have been successful in the
past.
"When you lose," Franceschini told La Repubblica newspaper,
"it means that something has been broken with your electorate,
with the country, and you have to understand, you have to repair
the rift".
The culture minister said "we aren't just faced with a
political defeat for the centre left, but with a crossroads,
which concerns not only us, the PD, and our field, but the
destiny of the country in the next few years".
"The path to be taken can only be that of rebuilding the
centre left".
Sports Minister Luca Lotti, one of Renzi's closest allies,
responded to Franceschini's plea by saying that "we can't always
call everything into question again".
Franceschini shot back: "the discussion has just started".
One of the leaders of the MDP, Pier Luigi Bersani, who has
said he would be prepared to join forces with a Renzi-less PD,
told Corriere della Sera newspaper that It was "ungenerous" and
"even scoundrel-like" to blame the MDP and former Milan mayor
Giuliano Pisapia's Progressive Field (CP) for Sunday's defeats.
"It takes nerve to get angry with those people like me and
Pisapia who went to places where the PD leaders were just mist,
like Genoa and La Spezia, to try to put up a bulwark against the
right," he said.
"I see elements of ungenerosity which to many appear even
scoundrel-like".
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