The Mayoral election in Bologna next year was always going to have a certain national relevance, despite the city’s relatively small size. The very real possibility that a centre-right candidate could be elected by this ‘red’ city would obviously be another blow to Walter Veltroni’s opposition PD party. The relevance of the race was bolstered yesterday by the ‘surprise’ news that current Mayor Sergio Cofferati will not be seeking re-election.

Cofferati’s decision, on the face of it, was formed by the desire/need to spend more time with his infant son.  Cofferati is not from Bologna, and his partner and son live in Genoa. The decision to step back from the election is thus a personal one. 

There is, though, a political logic to it as well – however much the ex-leader of the CGIL union may like to deny it. The truth is that coming towards the end of his five-year mandate Cofferati is far from popular in the city.

There are plenty of unpopular outgoing mayors, particularly in these cost-cutting times. What makes Cofferati worth talking about in particular is the fact that from the winter of 2005 onwards, he has been the leading proponent of the idea that ‘security’ and ‘law and order’ are not themes to be monopolised by the right-wing. 

To put his philosophy in simple terms, viewing the growth in popularity of the Lega Nord across Northern Italy, and the poor electoral showing for the left both under Romano Prodi in 2006 and Walter Veltroni in 2008, Cofferati suggested that the left needs to take practical steps to allay the fears of citizens in cities like Bologna. In a 2005 interview with Repubblica’s Concita De Gregorio, Cofferati said:

“In both Rifondazione (Comunists) and the Greens there’s an activist spirit that thinks you change laws through the habit of breaking them. Think of the occupation of houses: First we squat, then we change the criteria with which they are assigned. It’s not like that. Laws are to be respected for what they are, and they get changed in the proper place. This is the thing that has conditioned the actions of the left, a certain indulgence,  an underestimation of widespread and ‘socailly acceptable’ illegality. The left has a reflex: given that legality has always been a banner for the right, then you can’t talk about it, it’s taboo. A grave error”

Cofferati’s experiment in security then became a national talking point. His decision to destroy impromptu Gypsy camps on the outskirts of the city brought him criticism and praise in equal measure. His clamping down on ‘centri sociali’, large left-wing squats were similar. By last year  he had lost the support of the smaller left-wing parties, and formed a pact on legality with the ‘post-fascist’ Alleanza Nazionale.

On a national level, then, various commentators pushed Cofferati as the way forward for the left. The reason that the left continually fail to win in the Northern part of the country, according to this thesis, is that they’re not tough on crime. 

But if it’s true that Sheriff Cofferati is unelectable in Bologna…

[1] “Sia in Rifondazione che nei Verdi c’è un’anima movimentista che pensa che le leggi si cambino con la consuetudine a violarle. Pensi all’occupazione delle case: intanto occupiamo, poi cambiamo i criteri di assegnazione. Non è così. Le leggi si rispettano per quello che sono, e si cambiano nelle sedi proprie. È questo il punto che ha tanto condizionato l’azione della sinistra: una certa indulgenza, una sottovalutazione dell’illegalità diffusa e “socialmente apprezzabile”. La sinistra ha un riflesso condizionato: siccome la legalità è sempre stata una bandiera della destra allora non se ne parla, è tabù. Errore gravissimo” – Cofferati: “Sicurezza, sinistra sveglia” Bologna è come il resto d’Italia”