Schlein and Conte like Mondaini and Vianello: the Bari case shatters the broad field

Bari case, Schlein and Conte like Mondaini and Vianello: the arrests in Puglia demolish the Pd-5S political agreement

The story of the (tormented) relationship between Elly Schlein and Giuseppe Conte is taking on the features of the sketches between Sandra Mondaini and Raimondo Vianello, the couple who, despite loving each other (but this is to be ascertained in reality) necessarily have to share the same bed (“the wide field”) and so they end up kicking each other underneath the sheets. And in fact it could not have been otherwise, given the contingencies. The Five Star Movement is – at least on paper – a justicialist movement (“Honesty!”) even if its founder was eliminated by that miracle of politics that is Giuseppe Conte. And we must necessarily start from him to try to understand something. Conte is an experienced, indeed very experienced “man of the world”, we could say to Totò that he not only served in the “military in Cuneo” but actually stayed there. He “discovered” politics late in life thanks to the Movement which had initially used him as a point of mediation between Matteo Salvini and Luigi di Maio, after a long institutional crisis of almost three months.

At the beginning Conte was very obsequious and asked a Di Maio continuously whether he could say something or not, providing among other things a very poor institutional spectacle in the eyes of the world. Then we know how it ended. Conte eliminated everyone, including the founder of the Five Star Movement Beppe Grillo, by making a deal with Matteo Renzi and also sending Mario Draghi home, thus paving the way for the centre-right to win. Conte is a situationist, that is, someone who has no political idea and moves solely on a political-institutional chessboard, seeking each time not the coherent development of a game but rather only the move that is most convenient for him at that specific moment. Nothing gives to strategy, everything to tactics.

For this reason he passed without problems from a centre-right government (Conte 1) like the yellow-green one to a centre-left one, i.e. the yellow-red one (Conte 2), going on to even support the hated Draghi in order to hold the cadrega. The duration of his second government should rather be called the “Covid government”, given the crucial help provided to him by the pandemic. The fall is also due to a mere political calculation and that is to re-credit oneself as an opponent of Draghi to gather some votes in an M5S which is otherwise in free fall. And it worked quite well, given that in 2022 he was saved from disaster, despite losing a lot. The relationship with the Democratic Party – and above all with Elly Schlein Mondaini– it is a forced and convenient relationship because the Democratic Party was the main objective of Grillo and his followers, in fact it was called “PdL – l”. The recent and ongoing events in Puglia have constituted the fuse or detonator, whatever you prefer, for the current crisis. The judicial investigation by the Bari Prosecutor's Office, which saw 130 arrests in a first phase with a new phase a few days ago, which saw one of its councilors investigated (who resigned from the party) with her husband under arrest, caused everything to explode .

Furthermore, it has shifted the spotlight away from the incredible story Decaro – complete with a little aside about missed memories – precisely about Emiliano. The two will be heard in anti-mafia proceedings by April. In the meantime, no one has yet apologized to the Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi and Giorgia Meloni. At this moment, for the shrewd Count, the Democratic Party is an infected fish to keep as far away as possible, under penalty of contaminating the scales of supposed nobility, even if the news of the conviction was only yesterday (along with other minor characters always close to the Movement) to 8 years and 8 months of the former President of the Roman city council Marcello De Vito, when she was mayor Virginia Raggi. For a party that makes justice with a capital G its beacon, what is coming out in Puglia is pure poison, especially in the proximity of the European elections. For this reason Conte-Vianello had to give Schlein-Mondaini a good kick in the butt. Nothing personal, the husband seems to say to his wife: “it's politics, stupid!”.