Lack of agreements, regional chaos. In Calabria, time is running out.

Puglia is grappling with Michele Emiliano, who refuses to take a step aside, and Antonio Decaro, who, consequently, refuses to take a step forward.

Calabria, which votes in early October, still has no challenger for Roberto Occhiuto and the deadline for submitting lists is approaching (the countdown is 20 days away). Veneto, which—despite the August break—is still experiencing a tug-of-war between the League and Brothers of Italy over who should succeed Luca Zaia. Zaia, in turn, is keeping everyone on tenterhooks: "Yes list," "No list," as they wait to see what he intends to do next.

Added to all this is Tuscany, which, while today seeing an agreement reached by the Democratic Party and the Five Star Movement to support Eugenio Giani, sees the rest of the reformist front (Azione, +Europa, PRI, and PSI) fracture, with the collapse of the agreement for a single "presidential" list. And, alongside this, a disruptive move, with Democrazia Sovrana Popolare, the political force led by Marco Rizzo, appealing to the Regional Administrative Court (TAR) to annul the decree calling the election date. Considering that Puglia and Veneto (as well as Campania) still have no election dates—the end of November is now a given for these regions—the search for a solution appears particularly urgent for Calabria, where September 5th and 6th is the deadline for submitting lists and candidates for a seat at Palazzo Campanella. Here, the deadlock is deep within the center-left, which still lacks a name to officially oppose Occhiuto. For better or worse, Pasquale Tridico, a Five Star Movement MEP, seems to fit the desired political profile, but the reserve candidate, the former president of the National Institute of Social Security (INPS), appears unwilling to release it yet. Two options are therefore open to the Calabrian center-left: the first, by far the easiest, would see Tridico express his willingness to work with the coalition to quickly converge on him, closing all other dossiers in a cascade. The path that would see Tridico back out is decidedly more tortuous and difficult to interpret. Because while the Democrats would raise no objections to him, they don't seem to want to hear about other Five Star Movement candidates. And for Calabria, as for the other regions in the balance, the game shifts to Rome, which will see the two poles—the center-right and the more or less "broad" center-left—attempt to reconcile local interests with national demands. And these latter positions move the Campania pawn back a few places, where the center-left's candidate in pectore, Roberto Fico, is waiting for Vincenzo De Luca, determined to hold off negotiations until he gets the green light for his lists, for possible "important" council positions, and for the Democratic Party's regional secretariat for his son Piero. But while the center-left's plate is crying, the center-right's is not laughing. In Campania, for example, the choice not only of the name, but even of the party's colors is being delayed. Here, Fratelli d'Italia (Brothers of Italy) refuses to abandon the option of its own candidacy, but also reveals internal rifts between those who would confirm the first choice of Edmondo Cirielli and those who would prefer a civic figure like the lawyer Giosy Romano. Forza Italia, which has been against Cirielli from the start, is further stirring the waters with regional secretary Fulvio Martusciello, who is enriching the debate by launching "a female candidacy." A stillborn proposal, as Martusciello himself admits, complaining that when he proposed it, "they looked at me like they're crazy." But Veneto remains the main focus, with Matteo Salvini's party assuming that the League should be the one to express the post-Zaia coalition, while Meloni's party consistently points out, as regional coordinator Luca De Carlo regularly does, that "Veneto is the region where" the FdI has achieved "the best results at the national level." Therefore, giving way would be considered "an act of extraordinary generosity" for "a party with 37% to another with 15%."