Elly Schlein cashed 64.5 percent of the vote in the Democratic Party primary election. And thus became the first female leader of the PD, as well as the first person from the LGBTQIA+ community to hold this important office.
It became so by overtaking Emilia-Romagna Regional President Stefano Bonaccini, (who stood at 35.5 percent) and winning the seat that previously belonged to Enrico Letta.
“They didn’t see us coming this time either,” are the first words of Elly Schlein with which she opens her press conference after her victory. Oh yes, many did not see her coming in victory: from political analysts, to the vast majority of the PD leadership team. Many did not expect the great flood of voters at the polls: more than a million people lined up at some 5,000 polling stations, often in the pouring rain on Sunday 26 Feb, that hit nearly all of Italy.
Elly Schlein’s victory is as historic for the PD (democratic party), as it is for Italy.
Elly Schlein and her attention to the demands of the LGBTQIA+ community
“I am a woman. I love another woman and I’m not a mother, but that doesn’t make me any less of a woman. We are not living wombs, but people with their rights.” These are the words Elly Schlein uttered from the stage in Rome’s Piazza del Popolo, totally reversing the iconic speech of the leader of Fratelli d’Italia.
The new leader of the Democratic Party has always been a vocal advocate as much for women’s rights as for those of the italian queer community. In particular, on the subject of LGBTQIA+ rights, Elly Schlein said she would reintroduce a law against homobilesbotransphobia, which as she pointed out is “the minimum union in Europe,” a “law of civilization” that we should not miss. In addition, on several occasions, Schlein said she would fight for the achievement of egalitarian marriage and rights for all families, including nontraditional families, such as homosexual families.
Speaking of those who are often invisibilized in our society, Elly Schlein said recently, “People who experience discrimination because of who they are, they are people who work, pay taxes, do business, unfortunately they have a harder time doing business. They are discriminated against in access to services despite paying taxes, and they are also discriminated against in the workplace… We need a country with more rights.”
Seven things to know about Elly Schlein, new leader of the PD
- Elly Schlein is the youngest person to become secretary of the Democratic Party. She is 37 years old. When Matteo Renzi won the primaries in 2014, he was 38.
- Born Elena Ethel Schlein, Elly Schlein was born in 1985 in Lugano, Switzerland to academic parents. Her mother, Italian Maria Paola Viviani Schlein, was dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Insubria. While her father, American Melvin Schlein, is professor emeritus of political science with a past as assistant director at the Bologna campus of Johns Hopkins University
- Her parents coincidentally met in Bologna, where Elly Schlein went to live at age 19 and where in 2020 she was elected to the region, becoming the vice president of Bonaccini, with whom she contested the leadership of the PD.
- Elly, who has U.S. citizenship and is a naturalized Swiss citizen, also has Ukrainian ancestry: her grandfather Hershel Schleyen left the town of Žovka (north of Lviv), which was then under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to emigrate to New York. Grandfather was Jewish, as was the woman he met and married in America, Ethel, of Lithuanian descent
- She is not the first in her family to be involved in politics and to be in Parliament. The other grandfather, Agostino Viviani, was also a senator of the Socialist Party, as well as a famous Sienese lawyer of the Milan Bar. He presented the first bill on the civil liability of magistrates
- Elly has two siblings. Susanna pursued a career in diplomacy and is now first counselor at the Italian Embassy in Athens. Three months ago, she emerged unharmed from an assassination attempt claimed by Greek anarchists in protest of the 41 bis to Alfredo Cospito
- In 2008 and 2012, Elly volunteered in both of Obama’s U.S. presidential election campaigns
