A great victory, a sign of hope, a hot broth or a finger in the plague. In the eyes of the Democratic Party of Elly Schlein and the center -left, all this can be the sense of the first round of the administrative ones, depending on the perspective with which what happened is observed. The reference is above all in Genoa, the only real test of national relevance (the victory of the left in Ravenna, traditional red capital, appears not very significant), where the candidate of the center -left, Silvia Salis, defeated the center -right candidate Pietro Piciocchi in the first round, becoming mayor of the city of the Lanterna and reconquering the Municipality after the experience of Marco Bucci, who passed to the guidance of the region.

Genoa laboratory

Mind you, there is nothing really historical, given that Genoa is traditionally a city -oriented city and, if anything, it was Bucci’s victory a few years ago that represented a turning point. Yet the result remains significant. In Genoa, in fact, a moderate candidate won, driving a coalition that embodies that famous wide field that at national level was wrecked between internal divisions and leaders’ personalisms. Silvia Salis represents, in practice, what the center -left would need and which, for the moment, seems unable to express.

I would like, I don’t want, but if you want. Of course, on the local level it is easier to build alliances: on concrete themes it is easier to find synthesis points and you do not divide yourself on Palestine, weapons to Ukraine or Trump’s duties. The restaurant is an arena where ideologies count more and less. In addition, the electoral law, which favors the aggregation around a single candidate, has done the rest.

What changes with the victory of the wide field

From this Genoese experience, the center -left could draw some important lessons. The first is that united you win, as Elly Schlein herself pointed out yesterday and how, moreover, it appears evident from the polls: adding the data of the individual parties, the center -right and center -left numbers (including the M5S) are not so far away. But one thing is to say, another is to make it. To build this unit, it is necessary that those who drive the coalition, possibly the PD, have the political intelligence of adopting a center of gravity, capable of representing the different souls that make up the center -left and the voters who gravitate around it. In this sense, the moderate profile of Silvia Salis is not accidental (it seems to have been courted even by the opposite front). Being barewells means avoiding extremist positions, looking for contact points without losing their reformist character, an indispensable element for those who place themselves on the left.

Schlein against Conte

The other point concerns the personalization of leadership. It is useless to go around it: the underground war between Elly Schlein and Giuseppe Conte for the candidacy for the rewarding reward, even if often it remains silent, and certainly represents one of the elements that have determined the shipwreck (for now momentary) of the wide field.

The center -left has now in front of two years to build a concrete alternative that today politically still appears not very defined. Who knows if victories like that of Genoa will help managers to reflect seriously. Provided that they are able to really read reality, and they do not find, as often happens, only confirmation of what they already think: a self -axus -solve approach that does not help to build a true political perspective.