Democratic Party (PD) leader Elly
Schlein said Saturday that she was optimistic about the chances
of Italy's opposition parties forming a 'broad field,' going
from the Centre of the political spectrum to the Left, in order
to challenge Premier Giorgia Meloni's ruling centre-right
coalition.
"As the Democratic Party, we are stubbornly in favour of unity
everywhere, we are even more so after the good result we saw at
the local and European elections (recently)," Schlein told
reporters on the sidelines of an initiative in Perugia against
the government law bringing 'differentiated autonomy' for the
nation's regions.
"When there is a credible candidate and when a shared project is
put forward based on concrete priorities, I am convinced that a
broad convergence can be achieved among the parties that want to
build an alternative to the right".
A factor in the ease with which Meloni's coalition won the 2022
general election was the fact that the opposition parties were
divided.
The so-called 'broad field', featuring the centre-left PD, the
leftwing populist 5-Star Movement (M5S), the Green-Left Alliance
(AVS) and two centrist parties, Azione (Az, Action) of former
industry minister Carlo Calenda and Italia Viva (IV) of former
premier and ex PD chief Matteo Renzi, has been tried with some
success at regional and local elections but not at the national
level.
On Friday, Renzi said that the only hope of taking on the Right
was via cooperation with the centre-left after an attempt to
build a centrist 'third pole' with Azione failed.
IV and Azione ran together at the 2022 general election but they
stood separately in June's European elections following a row
and neither party obtained the threshold needed to have a MEP
elected.
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