No one is surprised if Giorgia Meloni on behalf of the government and Elly Schlein and Giuseppe Conte, voices of the opposition, clash verbally during the briefing in Parliament.
It is to be expected that the majority highlights what it has done, announcing that there will be no reshuffles nor early resignations (“we will govern for 5 years,” said the Prime Minister), and that the opponents claim the opposite: in the almost 4 years of ongoing governance, “you have done nothing,” said the PD leader, Schlein.
Moreover, no one can be surprised if even agreements between center-right and center-left falter on the boiling electoral law. Which has always been perceived as the proposing side’s attempt to guarantee its continuation in power. An attempt, moreover, disavowed by voters, who vote after vote tended not to reward the proposing side.
Yet, the electoral law should be considered a mechanism of pure parliamentary technique: how to combine the two key criteria of representativeness and governability, according to the rulings of the Constitutional Court.
So, all already seen: no one is scandalized by the ostentatious dialogue of the deaf and the perpetual electoral campaign already restarted.
However, just as Covid marked a before and after in the politics of the European Union and not only Italy called to face that unexpected and unprecedented evil, the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are the evil of evils that no one had foreseen. And that no one can today predict when and how it will end. Even if extremely serious, hatred among peoples in conflict and the economic crisis for all other peoples not in conflict multiply. The crisis of Hormuz and planetary instability is paid for.
It is the moment of the exceptional that must suggest to the majority and the opposition not to pretend to love each other, nor to lower the tones in a world that, riding the wave of Donald Trump, now speaks at full volume and without brakes. But at least to understand that accusing each other of lies and competing in insulting the other with more skill is a masochistic and provincial exercise for all.
Never as in these hours do the government and those who oppose it have the obligation to grasp the supreme interest of Italians.
Which is not to establish who is right or wrong between Meloni and Conte-Schlein plus their respective allies (this will happen at the next elections), but to know how they can, perhaps speaking on the phone, responsibly face the double crisis of war and peace and of economy and energy that concerns all citizens of the Republic.
The duty of political unity does not mean giving up one’s ideas, nor turning a blind eye to others’ choices.
It means, however, understanding that in the darkest hour the national and international interest comes before any political corrida.
And it is disheartening to have to remind this, while the Middle East burns, Ukraine has been under siege for more than 4 years and the energy specter haunts our homes.
(Published in L’Arena di Verona, Il Giornale di Vicenza, Bresciaoggi and Gazzetta di Mantova)
