Boat Show, first Orlando-Bucci face-to-face. Among the boats also Grillo, Salvini’s gaffe on Toti: “I don’t negotiate, I’m not a criminal”

The organizers and workers had even tried to present it as “the start of the great international nautical festival”. The inauguration day of Nautical Show edition number 64, among the boats of the former Genoa Sea Fair, was above all much more.

Electoral catwalk and political platform. Theater of the first handshake between the two challengers at the next Ligurian Regionals, Andrea Orlando e Marco Bucciand at the same time another episode of the long-distance clash between the two coalitions. The first ceremony in nine years without the former governor stepping on stage Giovanni Totinever like today the most cumbersome of the stone guests, and the day in which everything got mixed up.

The echoes of the investigation that overwhelmed the Region with sector announcements, the first programmatic proposals of the candidates with institutional endorsements (such as the one given to Bucci by the President of the Senate Ignazio La Russa) or not (see the «Thank you Marco» directed to Bucci by Saverio Cecchipresident of Confindustria Nautica, investigated in the La Spezia branch of the investigation into the Toti system). The intersections you don’t expect (like the unexpected scene between the mayor and Beppe Grillovisiting the Show in a “private” capacity) with the also “plastic” start of the Ligurian electoral campaign.

Moreover, less than 40 days after the vote, the race towards the Regionals has already brought everything or almost everything to the Ligurian scene. Today proposals also arrived, such as the “large international center for sustainable boating” theorized for the future by Orlando, and after the jokes of the Bucci-Grillo meeting (“Are you a chemist? Do you have two degrees? Luckily you didn’t do the pharmacist otherwise who knows how much damage”, said the comedian to the mayor) the battle between the two main contenders for the Liguria Region was characterized by fair play: handshakes, laughter, a long conversation.

“I explained to him how I see the electoral campaign, we should be correct without calling ourselves criminals.” Bucci will explain. «I presented him with an element of concern, that the situation in the Region and Municipality, with his candidacy and that of the other councilors, could slow down a path that has pitfalls in respecting the times of the Pnrr», Orlando points out. A first salvo confrontation, which however took place in the midst of yet another artillery fire fair, in the inevitable intertwining of local political battles and national themes.

If indeed the minister Matteo Salvini arrives at the Nautico to defend Toti, and on his conviction in the trial on the Open Arms case he declares that “I have never thought of reaching a plea, because I don’t consider myself a kidnapper or a criminal”, the Genoese senator responds from the M5s during the inauguration Luca Pirondini: «He says he has nothing to negotiate because he doesn’t believe he is a criminal, therefore he confirms that the plea bargain is an admission of criminal responsibility, in full logical short circuit: there is a lot of confusion under the sky of the center-right, guaranteeism for convenience» .

If Orlando himself broadens the scope to include port reform projects (“The idea of ​​port privatization is a very dangerous idea”), Bucci himself waves the all-Genoese flag of the relaunched Nautico (“In 2014 it was in recession, the Democratic Party said “Even the rich cry”, now look at what happened»).

Or if the candidate mayor avoids questions about Toti, the regional secretary of the dem Davide Natale stings on the declarations of the past (“Salvini had identified Toti as the protagonist of the Ligurian Renaissance, and it went as it did, today he does it with Bucci, confirming his continuity with the Toti system”).

Voices among many of an electoral campaign, in short, which has just started and yet is already in full swing. This is evident from the level of conflict, as well as the increasingly busy agendas every day. While waiting for the demonstration in Piazza del Campo Largo on Friday at Mandraccio (5.30 pm), tomorrow Orlando will be in Sanremo for the first programmatic meeting in the area. Today, however, he met the representatives of the regional CGIL in Genoa, the first of a series of meetings that will continue with Uil and Cisl. On the table are proposals to address the demographic crisis, the healthcare case, plans for sustainable reindustrialisation of the territory, and projects for “new forms of representation to make work the protagonist in the governance of the territory”.