2019 More Europe leadership election

Emma Bonino, More Europe's founder and former leader.

The electoral list was launched in November 2017 by two liberal and pro-Europeanist parties, the Italian Radicals, whose leading members included Emma Bonino, Riccardo Magi and Marco Cappato, and the newborn Forza Europa, led by Benedetto Della Vedova, with the goal to take part in the next general election under the leadership of Emma Bonino.[3] Emma Bonino showed off the list's electoral logo, with her name on it, during an interview at Che tempo che fa, an Italian late-night talk show.[4][5]

However, in January their alliance with the centre-left was breaking apart due to technical difficulties.[6][7] The electoral law approved in November 2017 required that the parties that wants to run in the elections and are not supported by any parliamentary group must collect 1,500 signatures for each of the 63 proportional constituencies in which the country has been divided according to the electoral law. However, since the constituencies were published only a few weeks before the elections, for the 2018 elections the number of signatures was reduced to 400, for a total of 25,200 signatures requested. The objection of More Europe concerned the fact that in the form to collect the signatures, they must indicate, along with the candidates in the plurinominal constituencies, all the 348 candidates in the single-member constituencies. The centre-left coalition, however, had not yet reached an agreement for candidates for single-member constituencies, and More Europe believed it was impossible to collect signatures in a few days because they expected that an agreement between the centre-left coalition parties would be reached only in the last days available before the closing of the presentation of candidates, leaving less than a week for the collection of signatures. The Deputy Secretary of the Democratic Party Maurizio Martina has offered to help More Europe to collect signatures within a few days, but Piercamillo Falasca, Secretary of Forza Europa, has declined the proposal explaining that the Democratic Party should ensure "equal conditions of access to the elections".[8][9]

However, on 4 January Bruno Tabacci, leader of Democratic Centre, a party that had a parliamentary group in the Chamber of Deputies, announced that his party would be allied with More Europe, exonerating the list from the collection of signatures.[10][11] The list then announced an agreement with the Democratic Party and its centre-left coalition.[12]

The list ran in the centre-left coalition but they got 2.56% of votes in the Chamber of Deputies, falling short to the threshold of 3% for the proportional seats, but elected three deputies in the single-member constituencies, Riccardo Magi in the constituency of Rome 10, Bruno Tabacci in the constituency of Milan 1, and Alessandro Fusacchia, elected from the Italians abroad in Europe; while in the Senate of the Republic they got 2.37% of votes, electing one senator, Emma Bonino in the constituency of Rome 1.[13]

After the election, the future of More Europe was unclear. The Statute envisaged a deadline for the party at 30 June 2018: if the founding parties could not reach a unanimity agreement by that date, the party would have been dissolved.[14][15] The leader Emma Bonino, during a press conference held two days after the elections, expressed her wish to continue with the project.[16] However, the founding parties were divided on how to proceed and what would become More Europe. The proposal of Olivier Dupuis of the creation of a federated party[17] was opposed by that of Riccardo Magi, who proposes to make of More Europe a pan-European confederation, maintaining the unanimity system of the founding parties.[18]

Then the President of More Europe Gianfranco Spadaccia presented a proposal that foresees a transitional Statute, introduces the role of a Coordinator and the creation of an Executive Council composed by 15 members (5 from each of the founder parties), the direct recruitment of individual citizens as members, a constituent congress to be held before the European elections that establishes the definitive statute.[19][20] Magi presented a counter-proposal that partially accepted Spadaccia's one, on condition that 6,000 members were reached by 31 May 2019.[21] In collaboration with Magi, Spadaccia makes the final proposal, which is approved unanimously by the three political subjects before the deadline, which provides for the appointment of a coordinator and two deputies and sets the date for the congress for January 2019.[22] On July 14 the Council is officially established and Benedetto Della Vedova is elected as Coordinator, while Bruno Tabacci and Massimiliano Iervolino are elected deputies, and finally, Silvja Manzi is elected administrator.[23] On 8 August More Europe officially opened the individual membership recruitment during a press conference[24] and finally on 15 September the name of Emma Bonino was removed from the electoral logo of More Europe.[25]

One day before the deadline for submitting nominations as Secretary, Paola Renata Radaelli's candidacy was admitted, managing to collect the 200 subscriptions required to take part at the Congress on 25–27 January. She's the president of the "Victims National Union", which aims to harsher penalties against offenders, a position far apart from those of More Europe in defence of prisoners, she supported the League's reform of the self-defence, on his social profiles she published photos with her and Matteo Salvini, leader of the populist and eurosceptic right-wing party of the League, Massimiliano Fedriga and Magdi Cristiano Allam (both right-wing politicians), she ran in 2012 in the municipal elections of Genoa for The Right, a eurosceptic right-wing party, and she joined "Culture Identity", a radical right and identitarian study center. The list that supported her candidacy in the Assembly, "In Europe yes, but not like that", had as top candidate Gerardo Meridio, national coordinator of Moderates in Revolution, the party of Gianpiero Samorì founded for the primaries of the centre-right of 2012 that were then cancelled. On top of that, the members' increase made believes that there was an attempt to win the Congress by registering other people close to her candidacy. Piercamillo Falasca on his social media claimed that it was a "hostile takeover" organized by a "group of sovereignists", while Silvja Manzi, administrator of More Europe, confirmed that the members' increase was "unusual", promising thorough checks.[35][36][37] Marco Cappato then asked the administrator Silvja Manzi to have access to the registration data and to check if they had been paid more registrations with the same credit card.[38] Silvja Manzi actually found out that 191 registrations, including that of Radaelli and Gerardo Meridio, were irregular, resulting in the exclusion of her candidacy and the list linked to her.[39][40]

• Paola Renata Radaelli — President of the Victims National Union (2017–present). Announced her intention to run on 17 January 2019.[37] Invalidated on 23 January 2019.[40]