" Our goal was to reach the quorum to change the laws, it is clear that we have not reached it. Today is not a day of victory ". Thus the general secretary of the Cgil, Maurizio Landini, in a press conference after the closing of the polls, at the headquarters of the Promotion Committee for the referendums on work , where he awaited the results together with the rest of the confederal secretariat.
"At the same time - he said - the latest data tell us that there are over 14 million people who voted in our country to which will be added the Italians abroad: a significant number, a starting number . The problems that we raised with the referendums remain on the table: in terms of reducing precariousness, protecting health and safety at work, changing the procurement system, protecting all workers in large and small companies against layoffs, as well as the whole issue that concerns citizenship".
"We knew, when we collected the signatures a year ago - he continued - that it would not be a walk in the park in a country where there is an evident democratic crisis and where exactly a year ago at another electoral appointment the majority of Italian citizens did not go to vote. We knew perfectly well that it was not a walk in the park to take the issue of democracy and participation as a central element. We did it because we believe that today extending and protecting work and extending democracy are not two different things, but are the same problem" says the leader of the Cgil.
" A deep, serious, avoidable defeat. Unfortunately, a huge gift to Giorgia Meloni and the right . Outside our bubble there is a country that wants a future and not a settling of accounts on the past. Now maturity, seriousness and listening, avoiding absolving acrobatics on numbers" writes on X the MEP Pd and vice president of the Eurocamera, Pina Picierno , commenting on the results of the referendum.
"The difference between us and Meloni's right - commented the Democratic secretary Elly Schlein - is that today we are happy that over 14 million people went to vote, while they are rejoicing because the others did not go. We will talk about it again in the next elections . They have carried out a real campaign of political and media boycott of this vote but they have very little to celebrate: more voters voted for these referendums than those who voted for the right sending Meloni to government in 2022. When more people than those who voted for you ask you to change a law you should think about it instead of mocking it".
"With this turnout, the referendums that were supposed to be an "eviction notice" for the Meloni government are turning into a debacle for the left - commented Mariastella Gelmini, head of the Noi Moderati delegation in the Senate - . Having taken the road of maximalism to the point of renouncing its own reforms, as the Democratic Party did under the leadership of Landini-Schlein, may be useful for filling the squares, but it is not useful for winning over voters and proposing itself as a government coalition".
The leader of Italia Viva, Matteo Renzi, instead speaks of questions on work that are "ideological and oriented towards the past. I hope it is clear that to build a winning center-left we must talk about the future, not the past."
"Great respect for those who went to vote - the first words of the deputy prime minister and leader of the League, Matteo Salvini - , a huge defeat for a left that no longer has ideas and credibility and that cannot even mobilize its own voters. In two and a half years of governing the country we have obtained a record number of Italians at work, unemployment at its lowest, growth in permanent jobs and a decline in precarious employment: let's leave the chatter to the left, the League and the government respond with facts, and Italians with the vote (and non-vote) of yesterday and today have understood this very well". "Accelerated citizenship? - he then commented - Wrong idea and rejected that too, if anything we need more controls and more common sense. And on illegal immigration, continue to reduce landings and increase expulsions. Italians have chosen, long live democracy".
"I have great respect for those who went to vote, because the referendum is always a form of participation," Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told Tg1. "That said, it was a defeat for the left, for the opposition that wanted to attempt an assault on the government using the crowbar of the referendum . Things went badly, the government was strengthened, the opposition was weakened."