The claim to create a center party from nothing capable of attracting consensus is as illusory as that of making the tabard a trendy leader. Let’s be clear, the tabard is a very classy and very comfortable garment, but one that is difficult to see around. Unless you are in Veneto. And we are ready to bet that Luca Zaia has more than one well stored in his wardrobe, from the most modest in heavy woolen cloth, to the much more valuable ones in pure cashmere.

Well, this is a period in which if you put the words “Zaia”, “tabarro”, “Veneto” and “Marina Berlusconi” together in the same sentence, the “centre” that is so longed for, for example, by the centre-left, which can’t wait to overtake the centre-right in the polls and in the next political elections, is likely to emerge. But let’s be clear: parties are not invented from scratch. It is a pious illusion to instill political life in electoral puppets doped with marketing and spin. With all due respect to the ideologists born and raised in the Frattocchie area or in Rignano sull’Arno, who are now accustomed to bringing out a center leader every three months.

The “real” center vs the electoral puppets

To give life to a real party, or at least a political formation that has a meaning and a real reason for being – and that is not a mere operation of the political class or marketing at a price per kilo – there needs to be a socio-economic context that expresses requests, a recognized leader in the area who is able to collect these requests, an organizational structure ready to become a party – or a movement, whatever you prefer – and money, a lot of money. Each of these elements, taken individually – or even two by two – is not sufficient to give birth to a successful political operation. This is why the meeting between Marina Berlusconi and Luca Zaia – which would have taken place on 22 April in Milan, on the sidelines of the Salone del Mobile, in the home of the president of Fininvest in Corso Venezia – has much more political power than any handsome tourism councilor thrown into the national competition with afternoon talk shows or any former Olympic athlete – also with good looks – and mayor of Genoa, put on display on the glossy cover of a glamorous magazine.

In that meeting in Milan, potentially, there are all the above ingredients that serve to create a successful political operation. And more than anything else, it could represent the root of a political undertaking carried out not to obtain just a few percentage points of consensus, good for moving the bar of victory a little here or there, but to shake up – for example – the centre-right as we know it today and to strongly renew the centre-left which, at the moment, is laboriously preparing the ephemeral “Large Field”.

Marina’s plan: a new leadership for Forza Italia?

Marina Berlusconi – about whom I had already written a few months ago – would have spoken with Luca Zaia above all about publishing and future projects. It is rumored that the former Venetian governor proposed to Marina the idea for her podcast “Il fienile”, a title that Dwight Kurt Schrute of “The office” could have proposed. But it is hard to believe that the two amiably spent time talking only about future editorial ventures and not, for example, about how Matteo Salvini, totally prey to Putinian delusions, is bringing the League to ruin, or how Giorgia Meloni, with her hyper-Trumpism of the good times, is today relegated to a stammering position in Europe. Or, how this government structure, of such laughable value, has brought the country to zero growth, also to the detriment, for example, of the Berlusconi family’s businesses. In short, it is difficult not to think of a probable proposal from Marina Berlusconi to Luca Zaia to think of himself as “blue” and perhaps the future leader of a new Forza Italia.

Also because, in the meantime, Marina, on the strength of the one hundred million euro guarantee to guarantee Forza Italia’s debts, will take steps to retire Antonio Tajani (just think of Tajani’s political acumen which was left after Giorgia Meloni’s promise to have the support of FdI for his aims on the Quirinale) and all his associates from Lazio, starting with his father-in-law, to renew the ranks of the party. An activism, that of the two first sons of the Cavaliere di Arcore, which is causing a lot of concern to a certain part of the country’s occult and transversal power. Enough to periodically unleash unorthodox attacks, see the series of serial attacks on YouTube by Fabrizio Corona against Pier Silvio and Marina Berlusconi, as well as the entire Mediaset. A typical “agitprop” action – agitation and propaganda – updated in the times of social media and podcasts (in this regard, read my article from a few months ago on the topic).

The move of Marina’s horse and the revenge of the Quirinale

Could it be Marina Berlusconi’s horse move that resolves the age-old question of the moderate vote? Could she be the one to provide the many orphaned voters – on the right and left – with a moderate liberal-democratic force? Perhaps Zaia could be the leader of a new Forza Italia that could decide the victory in the next political elections when, in a stalemate situation due to a probable draw result, it would act as a balance by supporting a centre-right or centre-left government. Or perhaps, such a renewed Forza Italia could act as a catalyst for a staunchly “Europeanist” government, which can marginalize those political forces which, for many obvious reasons, have an interest in overthrowing, on behalf of third parties (China and Russia), the concept of Western liberal democracy. And perhaps in this political operation on the part of Silvio Berlusconi’s two sons there is also a small revenge: doing justice to that illusion that embittered the Knight of Arcore in the final phase of his political parable: the broken dream of becoming President of the Republic.

A desire experienced as a final “rehabilitation” in the eyes of the country. Madness just to think about it, but an illusion in which the loyalists were complicit who made him believe that with the votes of FI, Lega and FdI he would have reached the numbers in the fourth ballot. So much so that Salvini himself explicitly said “Berlusconi as a candidate? Yes, he can aspire to the Quirinale”. So much so that Berlusconi himself gave the name “Operation Squirrel” to his undertaking. In the end, however, the allies split, Giorgia Meloni herself slipped away and the snipers shot him: the illusion soon vanished, leaving a heartbroken and ill Knight alone. And maybe now is the time to avenge him. And it would also be sacrosanct to do so.