The impression that many in the city have is that the effects of yesterday’s investigation will not stop at the arrests and precautionary measures applied to Giovanni Toti, Matteo Cozzani and a long list of entrepreneurs and public managers, between Genoa and La Spezia. The prosecutors’ investigations continue, also on the basis of the interrogations and searches carried out yesterday by the Fiamme Gialle and given the accusatory structure and the use of the term “permanent affairs committee” used by the magistrates, it really makes one think that we are faced with ‘triggering a chain reaction that could shake not only the political world, but also the economic one, with contracts and works that could suddenly come back into question.
An example, just 24 hours after the first shock, is the additional investigation into the contracts that should lead to the construction of the Genoa dam headed by the Genoese prosecutor Walter Cotugno. The work, which has already been targeted by the Turin office of the European Prosecutor’s Office and Anac, could in fact encounter new obstacles in the wake of the wiretaps that emerged in the investigation into the President of the Region.
An investigation on which yesterday the prosecutor Nicola Piacente rejected the definition of “clockwork justice”, with reference to the imminence of the next local and European elections: “Our request is from five months ago, precisely from 27 December. The order only arrived yesterday and was therefore carried out this morning.”
The effects on the next electoral round, however, are a certainty. Just as the reactions of the protagonists of centre-right regional politics are there for all to see.
The councilors of the regional council and the vice president Alessandro Piana, who he replaces pro tempore Toti, who showed immediate closeness to the president. Distinctions, however, can be seen among the exponents of the parties.
Without prejudice to the fact that we are in a preliminary phase of the proceedings and that all those under investigation will be able to defend themselves and demonstrate their innocence, on one side are the Toti supporters, who have largely issued declarations of closeness and trust towards Toti, to who were almost exclusively supported by the deputy minister of Transport, the Northern League member Edoardo Rixi. On the other hand there is the deafening silence of many Northern League members, of all the local Forza Italia exponents and, above all, of those of Fratelli d’Italia. Only the regional coordinator of the Melonians Matteo Rosso spoke out, calling for caution, but also explaining that the ball is now in the parties’ court and noting that early elections are a scenario that cannot be ruled out. Not a silence, therefore, but something that goes even further.
However, the one who, like many others, decided not to comment is the mayor of La Spezia Pierluigi Peracchini, neither yesterday nor on the sidelines of a press conference that took place today.
It may perhaps be an exercise in political fiction, but by reading the behavior of the majority allies, one can glimpse what will be the political implications of Toti’s fall. It is in fact foreseeable that a good part of the votes that could have gone to the Oranges will end up in the polls with a cross on the symbol of Forza Italia, the other moderate party of the coalition, so much so that Toti himself had recently not ruled out a possible return among the Azzurri: a statement received in a anything but warm manner by Tajani & co, who in the last few hours have practically ignored the events of the Ligurian governor.
In the clash between the more openly right-wing forces, however, the lukewarm closeness of the League could be read as an attempt by Salvini’s supporters to gather together some votes from former Totians who might feel orphaned by their leader. The substantial distancing of the Brothers of Italy, which had on several occasions expressed perplexity towards the hypothesis of a third mandate feared by Toti, can instead be interpreted as a distinction, an attitude that the strongest party in the country can allow itself alliance, capable of attracting the votes of the undecided.
The third mandate just mentioned appears today less concrete than a mirage on Mars, while at the same time a downsizing of Toti’s political movement itself is foreseen. Whether it is called Cambiamo, Lista Toti or Italia (Liguria) little changes in the centre. The personal party of the president of Liguria, which has repeatedly attempted to climb the national political scene, has shown a major flaw in what is defined as “civism”, as opposed to traditional parties: the absence of counterweights to within its own political perimeter, which is certainly more present in the parties either for a healthy collegial discussion or for competition. And according to the picture that emerges from the papers put together by the judiciary, the presence of the so-called antibodies could perhaps have reduced in time and extent the behaviors of which the president and his closest collaborators are accused.
Finally, there is also the system of party financing that is being called into question, which has already been in the eye of the storm on several occasions and which, with yet another scandal of which it has fallen victim, appears increasingly deserving of substantial changes.
