Giorgia Meloni, Matteo Salvini, Maurizio Lupi and Antonio Tajani. Everyone united in Piazza San Lorenzo in Florence to push Alessandro Tomasi in the race for the Tuscany Region. The prime minister attacks CGIL and the left “which failed to rejoice over the truce”, “more fundamentalist than Hamas” and particularly “angry” because “we have shown that they were poor in government”.
So, he launches the challenge of the polls on Sunday and Monday: «We were born to overturn the predictions and we will do it here too», the wide field is «a great social center», but «Italians understand when politics treats them like imbeciles, saying things like: ‘if you vote for me in the Marche you will have the state of Palestine’». Then, a passage on the historic agreement in the Middle East: peace is not signed «neither for Landini, nor for Albanese who insults Segre, nor for Greta with the Flotilla. There is one person to thank, Trump, president of the USA, Republican.”
A few hundred meters from the centre-right stage, from Piazza dell’Indipendenza, a procession of USB, social centers and young Palestinians starts. And the Prime Minister removes a pebble from her shoe as soon as she goes on stage, in front of the square full of her supporters: “We can afford to take to the streets and look people in the eyes with our heads held high.” The peace in Gaza “is also due to what some consider to be a criminal, who is Bibi Netanyahu”, Salvini claims, taking it out on a Tuscan lady who had displayed a “pro-Pal” flag in the rally square. Tajani, on the other hand, appeals to the centrists, because “on the other side” there is “only the left left” which is “increasingly dominated by the 5 stars”. Finally, he cites the recent demonstrations for Palestine which have become “for the war” with “daddy’s boys” who “took it out on the children of the people, who are the carabinieri, the policemen and the financiers”.
Among the notes of color in the square is a large banner with the words only “Vote Draghi” (Alessandro, candidate for the regional council for FdI), which misled many. On the last day before the electoral silence, Florence is a crossroads of events and political initiatives, demonstrations and inspections by members of the government. Matteo Renzi arrives in Piazza Strozzi and addresses the prime minister directly: “The country is at a standstill, the debt is growing, enough rhetoric”. The ambitious objective is for the reformist IV-Casa to be “the second coalition list after the Democratic Party”.
The Tuscan polls are a crucial event for the centre-left which, after losing the Marche and Calabria, is counting on Eugenio Giani to start the comeback. The governor must divide himself between a variety of places – given the impossibility of uniting all the leaders of the coalition in a single event. “I really envy the right because even when they are divided they present themselves united,” Stefano Bonaccini had said the evening before during the initiative at the Teatro Cartiere Carrara with Elly Schlein. Here the dem secretary gave Giani a boost by applauding his “courage” in bringing forward pioneering regional laws and his “good governance”. Objective: to cement the progressive alliance in the Regions and in Parliament to present themselves united in the next political elections and beat the right. Dem mayor Sara Funaro responds in kind to Meloni, from a further dem appointment for Giani at the Niccolini theatre: “It’s the first time I’ve seen her in Florence, my hope is that she can return outside of rallies”, “the one who treats the voters like imbeciles is the right”. Giuseppe Conte, who didn’t foresee Giani’s presence on the stage of the M5s in Piazza delle Murate (the governor is still indigestible for part of the base pentastellata), meets him in the Scandicci hinterland, for a ritual event – as a form of mediation – agreed with Schlein. A handshake to seal the alliance and a promise: «We will work together for 5 years». Despite the differences.