Liguria, five months after the arrests the investigation is no longer a taboo: Toti returns for Bucci and stings the magistrates. “45 days for wiretaps are already too long”

The last time they had seen each other together in public, Giovanni Toti e Marco Buccicandidate to take up his legacy in the Liguria Region for the centre-right, was the day the mayor’s surprise candidacy was made official, a month ago now. The new candidate announcing on the steps of the Prefecture of Genoa, in front of microphones and cameras, the former governor peeking out from behind, as if wanting to appear at all costs in the photograph of the handover: a final scratch just at the moment to which his longtime allies asked him for more than a step back, as far away as possible, to avoid any electoral risk, from Bucci’s race.

Last night, the two symbolic faces of the Ligurian centre-right season met at the launch party of the candidacy for the Ligurian regional elections of Toti’s historic spokesperson, Jessica Nicoliniand in the sea-view disco chosen for the event, the doubts of the time vanished between kisses, hugs, proclamations, spritzes and electoral campaign relaunches.

The evening of Toti’s rediscovered pride, in short, the evening in which the former governor, in some way, took back his role once and for all in Bucci’s bid for “his” Region. No embarrassment after the plea deal with which he left the main line of the investigation that overwhelmed him, but on the contrary. Even the desire to joke: “Be quiet, otherwise the wiretaps will fail”, was the joke at the beginning of the speech by the former president who fell due to corruption accusations. Who then, upon answering the question, also commented on the 45-day limit for wiretapping passed in the Senate: “it’s already too many”.

If a month ago the passage in the background of the press conference of the new presidential candidate seemed like the prologue to a definitive exit from the scene, a tragicomic preview of all the embarrassments and attempts to distance oneself from the former governor that emerged on the right with the choice of Toti to negotiate, yesterday’s event seemed to be a turning point in the Ligurian affair.

The time for balancing acts is over, after weeks spent on the edge between the need to vindicate the results of the last years of government and the attempts to deny the continuity between Toti and Bucci so as not to talk about the investigation that has overwhelmed the political experience itself, on the right the link with Totism “is no longer a taboo”, it is clear in the room. Strengthened by an internal poll that would see Bucci ahead by four points over the center-left candidate, the former Democratic minister Andrea Orlandobut not only that.

Among the colored balloons, the salmon canapés, the ex-president’s loyalists remaining in the orange area (from communications consultant Marco Pogliani to Toti’s communications staff, for years the very symbol of Toti’s season) and all the ex-president’s candidates in the ranks of the presidential candidate’s list, the judicial earthquake of May never seemed so far away. Rather, indeed, something from which to start again to gain new consensus.

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Speaking from the stage are Toti and Bucci, Nicolini and the regional health councilor Angelo Gratarolabut also the parliamentarians Ilaria Cavo and as well Maria Stella Gelminileaked from Action and directed to Noi Moderati. Listening was an audience made up of simple supporters, but also entrepreneurs, managers and well-known faces of the city. Who peel their hands at Bucci’s announcements (“I will govern two terms”, or: “I would like to talk about the future but instead they force me to talk about the falsehoods they say from the left”), and welcome Toti’s return to the public scene like a star .

«I believe the judicial matter will have very little weight, also because what was expected as a storm has become a fine drizzle – says the former governor – The Ligurians have a very clear opinion of these last nine years, and you will see it at the polls» . «We talk to Marco Bucci, we talk to each other, I do what I can do, but it’s not an electoral campaign that I do personally», he adds with a copy of the book coming out next week under his arm.

«Everyone continues to ask me why I agreed to a plea agreement, I believe that we should ask the Prosecutor why he agreed to a plea agreement after four years of an investigation that has shocked a region to its core – it is yet another attempt to overturn a narrative – However, I have not never attacked the magistrates who investigated us, I believe that politics can take inspiration from this summer and if it will take advantage of it and change the rules of the game a little it will be good for everyone”.

From the left, while the evening is still underway, comments are made in a few words: “Write Bucci, read Toti”, says the Orlando committee. But the embarrassment, two weeks before the vote, now seems to be theirs alone.