Former industry minister Carlo
Calenda and former premier Matteo Renzi on Wednesday reached a
deal to team up their two centrist parties, Azione and Italia
Viva (IV), for the September 25 general election.
Calend said that although he had not met personally with Renzi
he had been in phone contact with the former leader of the
centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and "agreement has been
reached on the underlying questions".
He added, in an interview with La7 TV: "Now we are discussing
other significant things".
The two leaders are expected to meet later Wednesday to firm up
the deal.
Their so-called 'third pole', between the opposing centre-right
and centre-left blocs, is currently polling at around 4% but
Calenda is optimistic about grabbing votes from ex-premier
Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party, which
has a somewhat similar electorate.
For two days Renzi had been urging Calenda to team up and form a
'third pole' in the centre of Italian politics for the general
election.
Calenda on Sunday pulled out of an electoral pact with the
centre-left PD, which Renzi once led, after the PD teamed up
with smaller leftwing parties including Italian Left (SI) and
Green Europe (EV), spurring Renzi to take up the baton for a
possible third bloc in Italian politics.
"We are willing to join the team because the Third Pole would be
the great surprise of the elections and only a strong third pole
would be able to ask (outgoing premier and former European
Central Bank chief Mario) Draghi to stay on in the premier's
office", said the IV chief, who has been shunned by his former
party the PD and its leader, the former premier he brought down
in 2014, Enrico Letta.
Both Calenda and Renzi are campaigning on continuing the
reformist agenda of Draghi, whose national unity government was
brought down last month by a rebellion spearheaded by the
populist 5-Star Movement (M5S) of his predecessor as premier,
Giuseppe Conte.
The M5S boycotting a key confidence vote in Draghi led to FI and
the rightwing League also pulling support from Draghi last
month.
As a result, the M5S's budding partnership with the PD was also
scuppered, leading Letta to cast around for other potential
candidates for his self-styled "broad field" on the centre left
of Italian politics.
Renzi was never invited to join it but Letta was banking on
Calenda's centrist appeal and has now blamed him for, in his
words, "consigning the country to the right".
However, a post-election match-up between the centre left and
the third pole is still possible, while one with the M5S is also
a distant possibility.
IV is polling at around 3%, about 1% more than Azione now that
Calenda's group has split from former ally More Europe (+E)
after the latter decided to stick to the electoral deal with the
PD.
The third pole thus has around 5-6% of the vote, far behind the
PD's 23.4% which combined with the SI and EV's 3.4% would put
the current centre-left alliance on just under 30% of voting
intentions, including the extra 2%-plus from Foreign Minister
Luigi Di Maio's new Civic Commitment (IC) group, the latest
splinter from the once powerful M5S.
Even if the centre left were to team up in that unlikely
post-election alliance with the centrist third pole, or even
more unlikely with the M5S, their combined score would still be
a long way off the opposing centre right alliance's combined
current polling tally of almost 45%.
That alliance, spearheaded by Giorgia Meloni of the hard-right
Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, is favoured to take control of
Italian politics on September 25 and potentially give Italy its
first woman and first post-fascist prime minister.
The coalition also features the far-right League of anti-migrant
former interior minister Matteo Salvini, which is currently
polling at around 12.5%, second to FdI's 23.8% and compared to
the 8% currently enjoyed by three-time ex-premier and media
mogul Berlusconi's FI.
Salvini repeated Tuesday that Meloni would be premier if her
party gets one vote more than the League, which appears a
certainty right now.
President Sergio Mattarella is expected to tap the leader of the
winning bloc as premier-candidate.
Three-time former prime minister and media mogul Berlusconi, who
served a two-year office ban for tax fraud and will be 86 four
days after the election, meanwhile said Wednesday he had bowed
to pressure from supporters and would be standing again, in the
Senate this time.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © Copyright ANSA
