And Giani goes to Nazarene. Schlein takes his time to resolve the Fico issue in Campania.

Looking at the clocks, it was immediately clear that the solution would not be a simple one. The face-to-face meeting between Tuscany President Eugenio Giani and Democratic Party secretary Elly Schlein ultimately lasted over three hours. Giani arrived at the Nazareno at 3:00 PM and left only over 200 minutes later. But the mountain gave birth to a mouse. More than three hours to produce three identical memoranda, agreed upon down to the last comma. One signed by the governor, another by the party's machine man and loyal supporter of secretary Igor Taruffi, and a third by Emiliano Fossi , regional secretary of the Democratic Party. More smoke than substance to reiterate "party unity," "the need to keep the coalition of alternative forces to the right united," and, above all, to buy time. At the Nazareno, in fact, they were convinced of two things. First: preventing Giani , still in his first term, thanks to the rules of the Democratic Party statute—highly regarded by Tuscans, according to Il Sole 24 Ore, and even by Schlein's regional leaders— from running again is nearly impossible. Second: to make him palatable to the Five Star Movement without breaking the regional alliance, there's only one way, and that's through Campania. The other outgoing (but ineligible) governor, Vincenzo De Luca, must be convinced to accept Roberto Fico's candidacy. Therefore, before closing the deal, Nazareno wants to have certainties on Campania. However, timing complicates the situation: Tuscany will vote in October, well before the Campania elections. Schlein summed it up in an evening interview on Tg3, where he said: "We're working in all six regions going to the polls to build inclusive and competitive alliances to defeat these right-wing groups."

On the other hand, it's true that Schlein had envisioned using Tuscany as a laboratory for his method—explained in the above article from Passeggiate romane—which consists of using the M5S's veto on some Democratic Party administrators to select personalities more congenial to the Nazarene. On the other hand, the secretary's priority is truly maintaining the unity of the broader field in all the upcoming regional elections, which, she believes, will be a prelude to the 2027 general elections, where she dreams of leading the coalition. And this is also at the expense of party unity. Indeed, there's no shortage of grumbling within the reformist wing of the Democratic Party. The most vocal in recent days was former senator Giorgio Tonini, who blurted out on X: "But shouldn't the Tuscans be the ones to decide who should govern Tuscany? And if the Tuscans are happy with Giani, can we tell them that no, a great national division should decide the presidential candidates? Once upon a time, it would have been called by its proper name: partycracy."

But the truth is that, with a healthy dose of cynicism, the Nazareno party has realized that preventing the governor from running again will be nearly impossible. Giani, in fact, managed to outwit both regional secretary Emiliano Fossi and Schlein's Tuscan representative Marco Furfaro. He relies on an article in the Democratic Party's statute that the other two had ignored, which clearly explains how, to prevent his re-election, they would need a majority in the territorial assembly, which instead sides with the governor. The loophole is found in paragraph 5 of Article 24 of the Statute and states: "If the outgoing regional president, at the end of their first term, re-admits his candidacy, alternative candidates may be presented if they receive the support of at least 50 percent of the members of the territorial assembly." The other way to circumvent this rule would be coalition primaries, in which, however, Giani would easily win. Indeed, as he left the Nazareno, reporters asked him if his "trusting himself to the Democratic Party" was a prelude to a retreat , the governor responded: "No step back." The agreed-upon path for now is this: settle the Campania issue with Fico's candidacy in De Luca's former region, and only then, with this argument in hand, put the Five Star Movement in a position where it cannot say no to Giani's second term.

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