She is the protagonist of great political schism in Italy. Slim, tiny, agile and likeable, the promoter of the revolution in the Italian center-left. Elly Schlein, 37 years oldwon by surprise the bid with the sung leader that had been presented by the registered Democratic Party (PD), Stefano Bonaccini, president of the most “red” and social democratic region of Italy, the Emilia-Romagna region with its capital in Bologna.
The victory was also overwhelming. In thousands of kiosks throughout the peninsula where members and sympathizers of the PD voted, many of whom had resigned from the party in disagreement with the political line of recent years.
On Sunday, a million people voted by surprise and the response from the polls that was known in the early hours of Monday gave 53.8% to Ely and 46.2% to Bonaccini.
As the wave of data poured into the Schlein headquarters in a suburb of Rome, the figures showed that they had voted for her especially in the cities: Rome, Milan, Bologna, Turin, Genoa, Naples and also in Sicily.
The map of the figures shows that the main area of expansion of the Democratic Party is not the working-class neighborhoods or the “red” regions, but what has been dubbed the “metropolitan bourgeoisie”.
It is, above all, about middle-class masses who aspire to a renewal of politics and a center-left perspective. In Europe, the left is identified with social democracy, which affirms moderate changes and social demands since the time of Karl Marx himself.
It is no coincidence that social democratic ideas were born and spread from Germany itself, where Olaf Sholz’s SPD currently governs, or Spain and Portugal, in the hands of socialist governments.
From Obama campaign activist to Italian opposition leader
Elly Schlein, born in Switzerland and the daughter of an American father and an Italian mother, both university professors, is herself a bearer of giving life to the “zero year” of the Democratic Party, which said goodbye to internal voting of three million supporters in the time of the Catholic Romano Prodi. Because the million that she voted for now is a low figure in relation to the golden times.
Elly received awards from prestigious universities and lived in the United States where was an activist in favor of the election of Barak Obama as president.
Born of an agreement between the remnants of the Communist party, which used to be the largest in the West, and the Catholic “democratic” wing close to the left of the centrist Christian Democracy, which ruled Italy for half a century, the Democratic Party was as a ball without a handle in recent years, clinging to coalitions in various governments and losing millions of votes.
“The little great revolution that we have made is a clear mandate to really changeSchlein stated.
His plans are to bring together a growing consensus to combat job insecurity, inequality and the climate emergency, three major challenges that he listed again during his victory speech.
The surprise and joy were greater because few expected it with as much faith as Elly showed. during his campaign promised a left turn and inaugurate the training of a fresh language to mobilize young people.
His rival, Stefano Bonaccini, offered him his full collaboration.
Schlein said that the right-wing government headed by Giorgia Meloni “has a problem with us from now on.” The Democratic Party arrived exhausted at the parliamentary elections on September 25 and garnered 17% of the votes against the overwhelming majority of the center-right led by Giorgia Meloni.
Meloni sent Elly a warm congratulations from the height of her political success. Currently, the coalition right it is up to 48.2% of the votes. His Brothers of Italy party has risen to 31%, Matteo Salvini’s League to 8.36% and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia to 7.4%.
The mandate of Giorgia and hers is five years and the fortress of the rights is currently indestructible. The Democratic Party has 17.4%, the 5 Star Movement 17.5%. They are the two main forces of the opposition, both from the center left.
Besides, Meloni’s image has an acceptance rate of 53% by the Italians, while their government reaches 51%.
Elly Schlein in turn has to organize with immediate challenges a strong opposition to Meloni’s conservative government and show a better role than her rival on the center left, the populist 5 Star Movement led by former Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.
“We have a broad mandate to change in earnest”Ely Schlein noted. “We have to be obsessed with responding to the phenomenon of growing abstentionism by those who have not participated, because among those people are the lower classes at risk of marginalization,” he added.
When Giorgia Meloni launched a “spot” in which she introduced herself as “I am Giorgia, I am a woman, a mother, a Christian”, Elly Schlein responded; “I’m a woman. I love another woman and I am not a mother but not because I am less of a woman.
Italy now has two young women in political leadership of the country, as ruler and head of the main opposition force. This is a beneficial fact to refresh the decadent politics that has lived in recent years.
He Corriere della Serathe country’s main daily, wrote that “the sign of our time is the rebellion against the establishment, the system and everything when it is perceived as old.”
“Elly Schlein is a novelty and an experiment,” the newspaper writes. “If people perceive that behind it are the usual ones, it will not be a novelty experienced for a long time. The same will happen if her strong charge will assume a character ideologically distant from reality and she will address the country as she wants it to be and not as it is, ”she completed.
Everyone expects Elly Schlein to be a big surprise again, also as opposition leader and head of a party in search of a renewal that the country needs like never beforebecause democracy lives on these great changes, as was also the case of the right-wing led by Meloni.
Rome, correspondent