Here we are. On Sunday 27 and Monday 28 October the Ligurians will return to the polls to elect the new president of the Region, after the resignation of Giovanni Toti who was forced to leave because he was involved in the maxi investigation into the corruption of the Genoa Prosecutor’s Office, which uncovered a real system of business. Toti reached a deal and the centre-right nominated the mayor of Genoa, Marco Bucciwhile Elly Schlein’s democratic party, which leads the centre-left coalition, is betting everything on the former Labor Minister, Andrea Orlando.
We met him to also ask him the questions that Ligurian citizens have collected on Change.org asking for urgent interventions from politics.
“My first commitment? Shifting the resources that went to private healthcare to public healthcare”
“In this electoral campaign – Orlando tells Today.it – I found a Liguria with great potential, but also with great problems: healthcare, the quality of work, environmental degradation. And then corruption and malfeasance, which unfortunately have distanced many citizens from participation and democratic life. My first commitment will be to shift the available resources from private to public healthcare”. Liguria is a very important testing ground, not only on a local level. It is a land where voting intentions, in many cases, have reflected national trends. “The Region, as it has always been, is divided in two: there is a more conservative Ponente and a more progressive Levante. However, I have noticed positive exceptions and countertrends, particularly in the Savona area, where the electorate, mostly net of the fact that the centre-left governs in the capital, it has always been more conservative, but this time it seems inclined to give us confidence. It is a sign that whoever was there before has failed, because in that area they tried to impose a regasification terminal without it listen to the population”, reasons the candidate.
In these long weeks spent touring the length and breadth of Liguria, the candidate of the so-called “Campo largo” has repeatedly reiterated that voting for his opponent is equivalent to voting for Toti again. “Bucci is part of that system – explains Orlando – even if he was not involved from a criminal point of view, he was fully involved from a political point of view. Furthermore, objectively, half of the forces that support him refer to the former president” . Compared to the divisions between Renzians and Contians, which pushed the former to leave the coalition that supports him, the representative of the Democratic Party does not seem worried: “I speak to the voters. And moderate voters cannot vote for this right which already has done a lot of damage.”
“Bucci is part of the ‘Toti system’. Even if he was not involved from a judicial point of view, he was from a political point of view”
Andrea Orlando at Today.it
Regardless of the legal matters, which will certainly have their weight in the secrecy of the ballot box, the former minister disputes the past management, which lasted a decade, for having left enormous structural problems. “We are the Region with the most important healthcare emigration – explains the centre-left candidate – and we are the Region that spends the most on treatment, having to resort to private healthcare. We are the Region in which one hundred thousand citizens no longer receive treatment, we have arrived to waiting lists of five hundred days. On the government front, we saw first-hand the presence of an oligarchy that mainly promoted the economic sectors to which it was connected, against development in everyone’s interest”.
“Liguria’s public works have been financed by centre-left governments. Why should we stop them?”
Andrea Orlando’s reference is to what the Genoa investigation somehow baptized as the “Toti system”, an intertwining of politics and business which affected the ordinary management but above all the assignments of public works. And the center-right attacks precisely on the realization of many of these works, claiming that in the event of victory of the coalition formed by the Democratic Party, centrists and the 5 Star Movement, many of these will be stopped. “It’s an accusation that frankly I find very funny – replies Orlando – because the majority of those public works can be done thanks to resources allocated by the centre-left governments or by the Conte 2 government. It would therefore be paradoxical if we came here to block the same works that we have financed. And in any case, they only know how to talk about these works and in fact they have not built a single one: in the last 9 years none have been built in Liguria, with the exception of the new San Giorgio bridge (built where it once stood). the Morandi Bridge, ndr) which was done, as we well know, by virtue of an exceptional situation which allowed us to work very quickly”.
“I will oppose the Vado Ligure regasification terminal with every means”
Many citizens, in recent years, have advanced their requests through the platform Change.org. And many of these issues returned forcefully during the electoral campaign. The first concerns a work already mentioned by Andrea Orlando, namely the Vado Ligure regasification terminalin the province of Savona. “I am against it – reiterates Orlando – in fact very much against it. I will oppose it with every possible means and I will lead a popular mobilization against this attempt to impose an easement on our territory for no reason”.
Then there is another project, that of realizing a Cpr near the Dianese Gulfa very touristy location: “I think it’s a mistake – replies the Democratic representative – because the place indicated is wrong”. Various associations in the Cinque Terre are loudly asking that the rates no longer be increased railway faresan initiative created to manage tourist flows. “It is a wrong change – explains Orlando – which has not reduced congestion but has decreased the takings of businesses, it is therefore a wrong experiment that must be cancelled”. Then there are those who ask that on the Ligurian motorway, considered by many to be a ring road, the toll no longer applies. “It is an absolutely desirable objective, despite the fact that the right, which had the possibility of using the refreshments to reduce tariffs, did not do so but actually increased them. I would therefore start with a lowering of tariffs and then move on to transit free”.
“There is no Robin Hood in Liguria”
Another hot topic is the possible installation of a wind farm on the Borbera – Cutrone and Staffora Valleys. “We are obviously in favor of an energy plan based on renewables – Orlando points out – but against spot concentrations made with extraordinary procedures. So for me that intervention is wrong”. And then there are the requests brought by environmentalist associations, which ask to cancel the resolution that allows the hunting with bows and arrows: “There is no Robin Hood in Liguria, that’s my answer”, concludes Andrea Orlando.
