Centre-left in Italy picks ex-unionist as interim party leader

Italy’s centre-left Democratic Party (PD), reeling from infighting that forced the resignation of Pier Luigi Bersani last month, chose former trade union boss Guglielmo Epifani as party secretary yesterday.

The party’s two most prominent leaders, Prime Minister Enrico Letta and the young mayor of Florence, Matteo Renzi, both sat out the internal party contest, with the real battle to lead the centre-left likely to be delayed until after the summer.

The PD’s weakness has compounded problems confronting Letta as he tries to hold a fragile coalition together while facing deep recession, youth unemployment of almost 40 per cent and public bitterness reflected in the success of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement.

Epifani, a former head of Italy’s biggest union the CGIL, was the sole candidate at a special assembly in Rome but he was widely seen as a compromise stand-in until a full party congress in October.

“The Democratic Party has been going through an extremely difficult period,” Epifani told the assembly.

“We cannot hide it from ourselves, we risk hitting the bottom.”

The PD threw away a strong lead in polls ahead of February’s election, and the inconclusive result forced it into an unlikely coalition with arch-rival Silvio Berlusconi.

Divided between a dozen competing factions, the party has been effectively leaderless since Bersani resigned following a humiliating party mutiny during the process of voting for a president of the republic in April.

Opinion polls show Berlusconi’s centre-right alliance now well ahead of the centre-left.