Mayoral Primaries in Bologna and Florence

The primaries do not appear to have redefined the structure of power at the local level. However, the cases of Bologna and Florence show some significant differences. In Bologna, the party leadership had too blatantly backed Delbono that when he was obliged to resign some just repercussions invested the secretary and his collaborators. In Florence, the personality of the newly elected mayor appears to obscure the party leadership and has propelled him to the national limelight. Third, the political difficulties of the Democratic Party must by no means be attributed to the primaries (but we are well aware that any and all primaries have their individual story: Bologna is not Florence, nor Torino 2011 is Naples 2011). Nevertheless, it seems to us that so far the Democratic Party has been unable to ripe all the possible political fruits, in terms of involvement, participation, communication, even renewal, the primaries offer and dispense. Finally, the Democratic Party has so far been unable to design a new model for its territorial organization. In the light of what we have analyzed here and of the knowledge acquired in many other primaries, it seems conceivable that the Democratic Party could move to a model characterized by open primaries at all levels plus a strong secretary chosen by the sympathetic electorate at large, especially if that electorate has proved capable of providing ten million signatures requesting that Berlusconi resigns.