by Roberto Borgioni
At 3:40 p.m., just over half an hour after the counting began, Marco Squarta has already understood everything. With a disconsolate look, in the corridor of the Quattrotorri, the new MEP of FdI whispers into the phone: “It’s gone, guys. They’re back in power…”. The giant screen in the hall mercilessly projects the results section by section and Margherita Scoccia’s defeat materializes in a few minutes. The more the numbers come out, the more silence falls in the headquarters of the center-right. And to think that at the beginning there had been an illusion: the first two sections counted, Montepetriolo and La Bruna, had put Scoccia in front. Then the minus signs started to rain down and the defeat took shape.
Margherita Scoccia makes her first appearance in the salon at 4.25pm. Her faint smile, her tired, disappointed and exhausted face of someone who feels like she has lost the game. She then retreats backstage. She reappears almost an hour later, when even the giant screen has been turned off because the results no longer count. She receives long, heartfelt applause from the faithful who remained waiting for her. And she speaks with a firm but low voice. She acknowledges the defeat, she compliments Ferdinandi but also asks her “not to waste the great heritage that we leave in Perugia”.
“It was a tough, important challenge – says the centre-right candidate – Perugia responded, it was a very popular ballot, I congratulate my opponent and wish the city that it can continue to grow and be a united city, it is This is my hope for the future. We all gave our best, we were facing a very fierce field in a very heated electoral campaign. I gave everything I could, as an administrator and as a candidate, I thank the city and the voters who have trusted me because this path will remain in my heart. I feel like making a recommendation for the good of the city: take into consideration the great work done, I hope that this will still be recognized and carried forward for the good of a path that has brought Perugia up to today to an important level that has enormous value for us and for future generations, a path that must not be lost. In this election campaign I tried to be a pragmatic person, to think about the issues and to give answers in this sense. It was a match that lasted until extra time, we knew it was a complex match from the start. I will phone Vittoria Ferdinandi – concludes Scoccia – for the moment I wish her the best, I send my best wishes especially to Perugia”.
In the Quattrotorri headquarters, at the beginning of the vote, the outgoing mayor Andrea Romizi also made a brief appearance, but shortly afterwards he disappeared from the scene. However, the Undersecretary of the Interior, Emanuele Prisco from FdI, from Perugia, remained to comment on the defeat: “I didn’t expect it – he explains sincerely – I hope that Ferdinandi can now unite the city. We will form a loyal opposition, constructive and severe, without discounting the contradictions of the center-left that will soon emerge. I thank Margherita for the extraordinary work she has done and the commitment she has put in, we have done our best and we are putting our face to it, for better or for worse”. Marco Squarta echoes Prisco: “We accept defeat, in politics you win and lose and this time we lost. It’s a clear defeat that gives us a lot of sadness, six months ago the scenario wasn’t this. But it doesn’t end here: let’s start again from Regional”. It’s raining at Quattrotorri. The lights go out, the curtain can fall on the challenge that brought the Perugians back to the streets.
