One is bisexual, a feminist and passionately pro-European. The other is a conservative who promotes the traditional family, is against “pink quotas” and who, until she came to power last October, was a passionate Eurosceptic.
The political views of Elly Schlein – the first woman to lead Italy’s centre-left Democratic party (PD) – and the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy, could not be more different.
Neither could their upbringing. Schlein, 37, is an American-Italian from an upper middle-class family who grew up in Switzerland. Meloni, 45, was raised by a single mother in a working-class district of Rome.
But many on the left are pinning their hopes on Schlein ushering in a new era for the lacklustre PD, a party that to date has mostly been dominated by middle-aged men and plagued by perennial bickering, while developing herself as an effective contender for Meloni, a popular leader whose party has strengthened in polls since forming a coalition government in October with Matteo Salvini’s League and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia.
Schlein’s election as PD leader came as a surprise: polls had forecast a victory for Stefano Bonaccini, the respected president of the Emilia-Romagna region, by a wide margin after he won a vote that was restricted to PD party membership. But in open primaries on 26 February she secured almost 54% against Bonaccini’s 46% as the Schlein effect galvanised support from voters unaffiliated with the party. The result has spurred more people to sign up for PD membership in recent days
“The result was unexpected, for sure,” said Monica Cirinnà, a PD politician. “But because of this it will bear good fruit. It feels as if a window has been opened wide and we can finally enter a new Italy, and this is a good thing.”
Others, however, are concerned that Schlein, whose socialist, liberal platform champions everything from a minimum wage and green policies to LGBTQ+ rights and migration, could take the PD down a radical path, diminishing its appeal among voters with a similar fate to that of Britain’s Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn.
“Her position is a little too extreme,” said a PD politician who asked not to be named. “In the short term, she might be able to attract a few extra votes from the Five Star Movement but that’s not the way to build a government proposal ahead of the next general election. The point is, we have the Corbyn risk – many of us [within the party] think the same as does a good portion of the electorate.”
Schlein, whose father is an American of Jewish origin and whose mother is Italian, has a law degree from the University of Bologna and worked on both the election campaigns of the former US president Barack Obama. She has drawn comparisons to the New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for her fervent activism on social issues.
A former MEP who is unafraid to challenge authority, in 2015 she left the PD out of frustration over the path it was taking under its then leader, Matteo Renzi, the then prime minister.
Schlein came to prominence in early 2020 after her small party, Coraggiosa (Courageous), played a pivotal role in stopping the far right from seizing power in the traditionally leftwing Emilia-Romagna region. She rejoined the PD last year and was elected to the chamber of deputies in September’s general elections, in which the party performed dismally.
Cirinnà said Schlein’s “radicalism” was needed to pull the PD out of the doldrums and give it a fresh identity. “The danger, however, is that the PD stays the same: a condominium of litigious people,” she added. “Although the current has changed with Schlein’s election, she needs to be good at keeping things together. She also needs to ensure that the party doesn’t disappoint its new supporters and cause them to flee.”
Schlein described her victory as a “small big revolution”, saying the PD was “alive and ready to stand up”, while warning Meloni that the party would now be a problem for her government.
Meloni said she called Schlein to congratulate her, adding that she expected “a very tough opposition, as I made a tough opposition”.
Schlein’s first challenge was to call for the resignation of the interior minister, Matteo Piantedosi, who after a shipwreck on 26 February off the coast of Calabria – in which 70 people are confirmed to have died – came under fire for implying the refugees brought the tragedy on themselves for risking such a perilous journey. On Thursday Schlein travelled to Crotone , where bodies of the dead were laid out in a sports hall, the first party leader to go there.
“It will be a fight between these two leaders,” said Mattia Diletti, a political professor at Rome’s Sapienza University. “Schlein is as assertive as Meloni and will be more assertive than before. She’s younger than Meloni and now stands with a clear political profile. But she must now be effective in challenging Meloni every day and everywhere in the country, as well as in taking control of her party and reconnecting it with a society in which many people just don’t trust politicians.”
• This article was amended on 6 March 2023. In September’s general election, Elly Schlein was elected to the chamber of deputies, not to the senate as an earlier version indicated.
