Toti’s accusation: “The enemy is politics”. And the big names of the right desert Liguria in the campaign for the regional elections

GENOVA — After the storm, the (forced) calm. It will be a difficult exercise, the counter-narrative being studied by the centre-right in the day after the plea bargain John Totithe unexpected turn that changed the history of the former governor’s judicial (and political) affair, and not just his own. The Ligurian vote is too important, in view of the autumn of obstacles that awaits the government forces, to let the aftermath of the judicial case complicate the electoral race of the new candidate, the mayor of Genoa Marco Bucci.

If the watchwords circulating in the coalition quota are almost the same, “minimize”, “soften”, “silence”, the attempted muteness can do little in the face of the choices of the protagonists on the scene. From the coldness on the issue of the national leaders, who continue to keep away from Genoa, to the free thrusts of Toti himself, all or almost all directed at the (former?) friends of the past. “The real enemy is not the judiciary, but politics – the former governor posted yesterday – Those who whisper that we could have held out for twenty years of trials, and I have not heard a single judgment expressed on what happened this summer”.

After the 24 frenetic hours following the news of the plea bargain, on the right the rules of engagement in view of the next weeks of electoral contest were discussed on the Genoa-Rome route. Few, but clear. First, insist on the “nebulousness of the accusations”, – it is defined – talk of crimes that did not revolve around “acts” but “attitudes”, – is the explanation also provided by Toti’s lawyers – of accusations too evanescent both to be proven and to be dismantled. “It is understood that the correctness of the administrative and concessional acts that were made is recognized”, continues Bucci. Second, talk a lot about the “Genoa Model” and as little as possible about the “Liguria Model”, in short use the lucky formula of the candidate mayor and forget the one made his own by Toti in recent years at the helm of the Region.

Another (yet another) attempt to distance oneself from the system that has come under investigation, in fact, to focus everything on the candidate’s popularity and smooth out any possible uphill climb, which however already clashes with the reality of the coalition.

A center-right that is a powder keg on the territory, and remains distant from the Ligurian front in Rome. In Liguria, the dialogue between FdI and Lega is still burdened by the waste of the national tug-of-war over the choice of candidate, but above all the Toti component has already ended up on the margins of the coalition: the few survivors of the Toti List destined to be candidates in a civic list of “reserve” to that of the presidential candidate, far from the spotlight, the former loyalist Marco Scajola who is leaving for Forza Italia. In the national secretariats of the parties, however, they prefer to still treat the Ligurian issue with caution, and they continue to desert any possible direct exit into the field.

In the Forza Italia quota, Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani was expected in Genoa yesterday morning, but at the last minute he deserted the regional party convention for which he was a speaker. In the FdI quota, Giorgia Meloni remains silent; the Ligurian step of her sister Arianna is uncertain, given in the air between tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. The only one to have announced an imminent arrival in Genoa is the Lega leader Matteo Salvini, but postponing it as far away as possible, in two weeks. On the national scene, therefore, those who are talking about Liguria are mainly the opposition forces. “We will see if Bucci will distance himself from Toti, but he must explain why some events happened without him noticing or with his passive presence”, makes clear the center-left candidate Andrea Orlando. “They must apologize to the government, after the choice of Toti: Meloni expert in conspiracy theories, Salvini who cries out about politicized justice, Crosetto expert jurist, Tajani who denounces the conditioning of the vote”, stings the leader of the Five Star Movement Giuseppe Conte. A demonstration of how, on the left but especially on the right, the first regional vote of the autumn will also and above all be a national vote.