One last play with open cards, the bet to take everything away. Or a bluff to cover something else, or more simply the attempt to sweep the ball away: a more or less successful way to gain time for the discussion on Liguria on which the center-right is bogged down less than 50 days before the autumn vote. It will take a few more hours to understand how to define the surprise proposal that monopolized yesterday’s debate on the right, the umpteenth one spent in search of a presidential candidate who is not yet there: to field the mayor of Genoa in the regional elections Marco Bucci.
Regardless of what kind of operation it turns out to be, after all, where the umpteenth about-face of the majority forces regarding Ligurian candidacies will lead will probably be clear already today. The mayor would have taken 24 hours to decide whether to accept the challenge. And the deputy prime minister has taken care of loading the wait for the answer Matthew Salvinileader of the party of reference of the mayor himself, at the end of the meeting with the Northern League parliamentarians, late yesterday evening. When he promised: «On Liguria, the deal will be concluded in the next 24 hours, and it will be a surprise».
An idea born as a suggestion, then examined within the Lega, growing to the possibility of a direct commitment from one of the national leaders of the front, – a phone call from Salvini, or from Georgia Meloni – yesterday, when asked specifically about the possibility of his move to the Region, Bucci took refuge behind a lapidary “I’ll run the electoral campaign in any case”, pronounced in the City Council.
The proposal to act as a “savior of the homeland” – this is the definition that is given on the right, now, in terms of candidacy – had already arrived in recent weeks, after all, and the answer had been no. His health conditions were too delicate, it was too politically risky to force a regional capital to return to the vote early just to resolve the problems of the parties at the national and regional level, which would imply Bucci’s farewell to the Municipality. Too many implications, too, in the investigation that has overwhelmed Toti and the Region.
The same reasons why those closest to him make it clear that today it could end in the same way, with a refusal. But on which, there are those who hope in the center-right, the mayor could instead even overlook in order to unblock the coalition stalemate. A scenario that “no one can exclude”, is understood with optimism in the Lega quota.
In short, it remains to be seen whether the clear no of early August, despite the mayor’s approval rating and the 84 percent of right-wing voters who would like him as a candidate (Tecné-Primocanale survey), will remain so. Or whether the last, desperate attempt by the center-right, which today in any case faithfully photographs the quagmire into which the majority in Liguria has gotten itself, will be seen as acting as a all in winning. An answer should arrive this afternoon, at the latest in the evening. The consultation with the doctors following Bucci’s treatment will be decisive.
After yet another day of quicksand, moreover, the vice-minister Edward Rixi is still “suspended” in the midst of the ongoing poker hand between Lega and FdI on Liguria, Veneto and the many government issues: he would remain the candidate liked by everyone that paradoxically no one (for now) wants to risk taking over. The only other known name on the table is therefore that of the Totian deputy Ilaria Cavowhile it is difficult to think of a new entry in the list of possible candidates with the crisis at hand.
If Bucci’s first counter-proposal to the parties had little effect, the invitation to re-evaluate his deputy Peter Piciocchiand in any case the Forza Italia supporter is ready as a second or third choice Charles Bagnascothe former regional councilor Cavo, although launched by the latest polls, no longer seems to be able to bring about a convergence. The only step that could unlock her investiture, a formal decision by Meloni, has not happened for now, and is unlikely to happen. Despite the tight deadlines and the “heavy sponsorship” – as defined by the FdI quota – of the leaders closest to her, Toti and Lupi.
It is also on the choice of the candidate (or the candidate), moreover, that could depend a lot on the commitment of the former governor in this electoral campaign. Active on TV and on social media, where yesterday a long-distance duel took place with the candidate of the center-left Andrea Orlando – “Every time you see a demonstration against a regasification plant, look at your bill on your way home,” Toti posted, “Moving the regasification plant from Piombino to Vado would cost 500 million on bills,” was the response – Toti has court commitments and promotion of his book due out in mid-October on his agenda, for which he was still in Milan yesterday at the Mondadori headquarters.
But it is not only his extra-political commitments that mark a certain detachment from the parties of his (former) majority, which has already emerged several times in these days of sailing by sight. The ongoing “plundering” of councilors in the orange area by Lega and FdI has also had an impact, inevitably. A candidacy by Cavo could relaunch his commitment and ambitions, others who knows, perhaps even convince him to exit the scene ahead of schedule.
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– 2024-09-11 07:40:59
