Letta suffers her first casualty in her bid to unite the centre-left in Italy

Action breaks with the Democratic Party, which aspires to counteract the far-right boom with unity

Aug. 8 () –

The alliance that intends to form Enrico Letta’s Democratic Party (PD) for the September elections in Italy has registered the loss of Action, one of the parties that had already given the go-ahead to concur together to try to prevent the extreme right from do with power.

The leader of Acción, Carlo Calenda, misses “courage, beauty, seriousness and love of politics” in an alliance that, in his opinion, “is made to lose”. In an interview with the Rai network, he stated that it is a “painful” decision, without making it clear what his political intentions will be from now on.

“There is no way to disassociate the Democratic Party from populism,” he insisted on his Facebook account on Monday, from where he called for a “reformist alternative” to get Italy out of the umpteenth political crisis in which it finds itself mired.

Letta has accused her hitherto ally of moving for partisan interests and of “helping the right”, making it clear that her intention is to go ahead with a pact that has, among others, the support of Civic Commitment, the new party that led by the former leader of the Five Star Movement (M5S) Luigi di Maio.

For the leaders of the Brothers of Italy, Giorgia Meloni, and of the League, Matteo Salvini, the abrupt departure from Action shows the “chaos” of a center-left that is lagging behind in the polls and that is struggling to alleviate the growing division of recent years.

The leader of the M5S, Giuseppe Conte, has accused Letta of causing a “political disaster” and has confirmed on Canale5 that they will “proudly go alone” to the next elections, while former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi -former leader of the PD–, you have rushed to have Calenda for the ‘third pole’ that you aspire to create as an alternative to the conservative formations.

The polls anticipate a clear victory for the right, which could add two thirds of the legislators in both chambers of Parliament and lift a person from the extreme right to the position of prime minister for the first time. Meloni and his party are currently at the top of these polls.

Italians are called to the polls after the 5-Star Movement withdrew support for Mario Draghi’s government in a key vote in July, although the cabinet headed by the former president of the European Central Bank (ECB) remains in office.