Renzi wins back control of his party
But the former Italian PM’s road to
winning the country is long.
By GIADA
ZAMPANO 4/30/17, 10:57 PM CET
ROME — Matteo Renzi easily regained the leadership of his
Democratic Party (PD) in primaries Sunday, but Italy’s former prime minister
faces a much harder task in his bid to return to power.
After a lackluster campaign, Renzi won the race to head the
party with a projected 75.5 percent of the votes, leaving behind his weak
rivals, Justice Minister Andrea Orlando, with 19.1 percent, and Puglia governor
Michele Emiliano, with only 8.4 percent, with ten percent of the votes counted
on Sunday night.
“This is an extraordinary responsibility. Thanks from the
heart to this community of men and women who believe in Italy,” Renzi wrote in
a hand-written comment posted on his Instagram profile.
The return of Renzi to the helm of the ruling center-left
party marks the first step in his plan to win back the premiership in elections
due by early 2018, confirming that he’s still the most popular leader among PD
voters. But since his departure from government, the left has splintered and he
and his party have lost ground in the polls.
A painful break
Renzi, 42, resigned as prime minister after his proposed
constitutional referendum failed in December. His absence opened a painful
schism on the left, with the PD’s leftist dissidents forming their own party,
called the Progressive and Democratic Movement (DP). The split has dented the
PD’s popular support, and it has lost its status as Italy’s largest political
force, trailing behind the anti-establishment 5Star Movement.
According to most polls, the anti-euro 5Stars hovers at
around 30 percent of the national vote, with a lead of between two and eight
percentage points over the PD.
“Renzi needs to
reinvent himself, after failing to deliver most of his promises,” said Wolfango
Piccoli, head of research at Teneo Intelligence. “The party itself, with its
internal divisions, remains one of his main challenges. But he has to come up
with new ideas, and a credible political program, which for now is completely
missing.”
Even though they beat Renzi’s cautious expectations for
turnout, the PD primaries on Sunday was believed to have attracted close to 2
million voters compared to at least 2.8 million in the previous leadership
contest.
After consolidating his leadership within the party, Renzi’s
uphill battle will be to ensure that disaffected PD voters and left-wing
supporters don’t continue to defect to populist groups like Beppe Grillo’s
5Star Movement and the anti-immigrant Northern League, which is the emerging
force within Italy’s divided center-right.
Renzi’s critics accuse him of having focused too much on his
personal ambitions instead of concentrating on effective policies to solve
Italy’s chronic problems such as moribund growth, youth unemployment at around
40 percent and the second-highest public debt in the eurozone after Greece.
Gentiloni headaches
The PD-sponsored government led by Paolo Gentiloni, who
replaced Renzi in December, lacked the political support and a long-enough
political runway to complete the needed reforms. After five months in power,
Gentiloni and his cabinet are still struggling with troubles in the Italian
banking sector, Europe’s migration crisis and strict demands from the European
Union to keep Italy’s budget deficit under control.
While the government managed to avoid a painful tax increase
this year, the EU may force it to include a value-added tax hike in its budget
for 2018 — a very unpopular move just a few months before the elections.
In the final days of his electoral campaign, which he
wrapped up in Brussels on Friday, Renzi openly softened his tone on the EU,
having often clashed with Brussels.
Another significant headache for the Gentiloni government
has been trouble at Italy’s flag carrier Alitalia. The Italian government is
scrambling to protect the company’s 12,500 workers, who overwhelmingly rejected
a rescue package that relied on job cuts and salary reductions, but would have
unlocked a €2 billion capital increase from investors.
More love for the union
His supporters say a victory by pro-EU candidate Emmanuel
Macron in the second round of France’s presidential elections on May 7 could
boost Renzi’s chances. Macron has been
depicted as “Renzi 2.0” by national and international media and Renzi hailed
Macron’s victory over eurosceptic Marine Le Pen in the election’s first round.
In the final days of his electoral campaign, which he
wrapped up in Brussels on Friday, Renzi openly softened his tone toward the EU,
having often clashed with Brussels on issues such as migration and fiscal
austerity during his premiership. On Friday, Renzi insisted that the EU needs
radical change, but also warned against the risks of surging populism.
Renzi’s latest shift appears to be an attempt to distance
himself from the clear anti-European agenda of the 5Stars, who support a
referendum on Italian membership of the euro, and who identify Brussels and its
technocrats as the origin of all Italy’s problems.
“Renzi’s message on Europe, however, remains ambiguous. If
he wants to beat the 5Stars, he can’t follow them on their same ground, that of
anti-European populism,” Sergio Fabbrini, a politics professor at Rome’s LUISS
University, said. “The only way for the PD to win the next elections is to put
Europe and a concrete project to reform it at the top of its agenda.”
Authors:
Giada Zampano
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