“A little big revolution.” That was how Elly Schlein, the newly declared winner of the Italian Democrats’ leadership election, described her victory on 26 February. Her triumph was an upset: votes in local Democratic party branches handed an early lead to the more centrist Stefano Bonaccini, but the primary election, among a broader electorate of registered supporters, handed the progressive Schlein an overall 54-46 per cent margin. Now she faces the task of reorganising a fragmented left-wing opposition.
Schlein is often called an “outsider”. This is in part because of her profile: she is 37, bisexual, and will be the Democrats’ first female leader. She’s also relatively new to the party. She had quit in 2015, during the leadership of the Blairite-inspired premier Matteo Renzi, and rejoined only in December 2022. While the Democrats were in national government through most of the last decade, often in grand-coalition or technocratic arrangements, Schlein was not.
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