Toti, here is the book to take back the scene: “The investigation has no effect on the vote”. And between Orlando and Bucci the duel remains at a distance

GENOVA – The new (yet another) turning point, in an electoral campaign which immediately seemed like a rollercoaster, could take place this afternoon at Terrazza Colombo, right under the giant screen which has become the symbol of the second line of the investigation which with Giovanni Toti it overwhelmed its majority and the entire local political scene, and brought Liguria to early elections at the end of the month.

It is on the roof of the city, in fact, at the top of the Piacentini skyscraper, that the former governor will present his post-fall book for the first time today, I confess I ruledreleased in bookshops tomorrow with Piemme, in front of around 200 guests including all the exponents of the various souls of “his” centre-right, from the Lega to FdI, various representatives of the Genoese business class and the candidate for succession himself, Marco Bucci.

The definitive proof of “full continuity between the system that ended up under investigation and Bucci’s candidacy”, as they insist on saying on the left, but also that “the investigation is no longer taboo”, as they are starting to say without too much shyness on the right (and not only in the Toto area). And at the same time the sign of a change of phase in the race to vote itself: perhaps it will not be true that “the consequences of the investigation will not have the slightest weight on the polls”, as Toti himself claims, but to win the dispute – and the there is awareness on the right as well as on the left – there will be other factors. The programs, perhaps, or the strategy chosen for the last days of the electoral race.

The embarrassment over the cumbersome return to the scene of the former president, in reality, is still there on the right. Not so much in the Bucci household, who today will only be present at the beginning of the event with the good excuse to quickly get down from the skyscraper (at 6pm, more or less the same time, he is expected to take part in the debate between candidates organized by the Genoese Diocese in Santa Marta), but rather in parties. Even certain passages of the book, it is made clear by the former governor’s entourage, could directly involve some of Toti’s historic allies.

The poll data and the national choices, however, have led the centre-right allies themselves to overlook almost everything: the summer under house arrest of the former president, the direct accusations against the parties, the choice to settle which came as a surprise, even doubts about the contents of the book. Which deals with the months under investigation under arrest, the treatment he received from the prosecutor’s office and neighboring parties, but also the behind the scenes of nine years of government.

“Enough time has passed for voters to forget,” a leader of the national center-right said yesterday, bluntly. And this is also probably why we can expect a completely different electoral campaign in the last two weeks. A final sprint made up of long-distance duels, end-of-race electoral promises, even a few low blows.

If the formula has been found from the right to avoid the risk of a two-way confrontation between Bucci and Andrea Orlando (“I do the comparison with all the candidates, as a matter of respect”, the mayor of Genoa continues to say), yesterday the duel between the two main contenders continued at a distance. The two only touched each other in Pra’, where the regatta of the Ancient Maritime Republics was scheduled, Bucci inevitably playing the double role of mayor in his own home and candidate for governor. But then it continued on distant routes.

Orlando, fresh from the important endorsement of the Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Diaz, Minister of Labor and Social Economy in Spain, visited the birthplace of Sandro Pertini in Stella, met the MEP (and former mayor of Bergamo) Giorgio Gori and relaunched some of the cornerstones of its program: «Sustainable reindustrialization means not returning to the industry of the last century but also using the great global changes and the logistical strength of Liguria to re-attract companies that today find it convenient to produce elsewhere – his episode – This means focusing on universities, on the transfer of technologies, producing low-cost energy in a region that today ranks twentieth in Italy for the production of renewable energy.”

Bucci stopped in the hinterland of the eastern part of Genoa, between Uscio and Moconesi, between Valfontanabuona and Valle del tempo («The opportunity to reiterate what is contained in the electoral program: the hinterland must be valorised starting from the infrastructure») and attacked his first opponent for the umpteenth time, but an unexpected theme, that of pets.

«For us, animals are four-legged Ligurians, ours is one of the most pet friendly of Italy: whoever is preparing to govern a region must plan concrete actions in favor of all those who live with a four-legged friend. In my program there are nine precise points in this regard, in Orlando’s not even a single paragraph.” As if to say that two weeks before the elections, preferably far enough away from the corruption investigation that has rocked the region, every single vote really counts.