Forza Italia breaks the deadlock and opens the electoral campaign for the yes to the referendum on justice, the last challenge before the 2027 elections. It will deploy its entire organizational machine tested for years: from gazebos to commercials, from conferences to squares, sweeping the territory and supporting the creation of other committees, in addition to the one led by Francesca Scopelliti which it has already sponsored. Furthermore, in January a double initiative in Rome and Milan, and perhaps also in the south (Naples?), on the weekend of 24 and 25 January chosen to remember the day in which Silvio Berlusconi took to the field. “We have maximum freedom of initiative. Even a neighborhood committee is fine”, smiles Francesco Paolo Sisto, who was Berlusconi’s lawyer and today deputy minister of Justice and in the very front row for the cause. The essential thing, for FI, is to move autonomously, faithful to the imprinting historically given by the Cavaliere for the separation of careers and which now cannot end up in the shadow. Even more so in the face of the “committee” strongly desired by the Melonians, as the sole voice of the pro-reform coalition, but which risks being swallow up others. This is, in fact, how it was perceived by the Azzurri, who last Tuesday participated in a meeting called by FdI in its headquarters in Via della Scrofa. Hence the choice to clarify, inside and outside the party, with a document approved unanimously by the Azzurri’s secretariat convened today by Antonio Tajani. Choosing to bold some words, the text recalls that the separation of careers “has always represented a flag for FI, which proudly claims its primogeniture”.
And at the same time, in a message aimed more at allies than internally, he emphasizes primacy: “We were the first to believe it was right that citizens should express their opinion on such an important law” and for this reason, “together with the other majority parties, we asked for a referendum in the Supreme Court”. Tajani then tasks Giorgio Mulè with coordinating the party on the ‘mother challenge’, supported by parliamentarians Enrico Costa and Pierantonio Zanettin. Thus begins a party electoral campaign that will involve representatives of civil society available to promote citizen committees for the yes vote. Stakes placed to dispel doubts after the meeting at FdI headquarters. The same one attended by Isabella Bertolini, former Forzista and now lay councilor of the CSM. A presence that the majority describes as absolutely silent and listening, but which becomes a fuse for the opposition. “A very serious thing”, for Peppe De Cristofaro of Avs who disputes: “It was a political meeting and not a conference” from which the members of independent authorities “should abstain”. Debora Serracchiani of the PD also criticizes the choice: “Yet another episode that demonstrates the institutional illiteracy of this right”, in that case being “confidential party meetings in which the Yes campaign is planned with the undersecretary in charge of services”, she says alluding to Alfredo Mantovano. There is no shortage of Battibecchi on the opposite side of the no. What fuels them is the choice of the president and vice-president of the “Libertà Eguale” association, Enrico Morando and Stefano Ceccanti, to stand in favor of the reform, with the consequent dissent of the Dem senators, Walter Verini and Dario Parrini who are in the same association: that activism for the yes “almost surpasses the initiatives of the minister Nordio and the right in terms of commitment and determination”.