OfMarco Imarisio
Northern League vice-president Alessandro Piana: «Or I won’t go to the Turin Motor Show» (where this year the host region is Liguria)
FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
GENOA – “Without a political mandate, I’m not going there.” Words were flying, and big ones too, yesterday afternoon under the porticoes of the Region building. There were just a few hours left until the inauguration of the Turin Book Fair, where this year the host region is Liguria, and It was not yet known who would have the honor and embarrassment of the institutional appearance at the Lingotto. In the hierarchical line, it would be up to the Northern League vice president Alessandro Piana, the highest in rank, who however on the phone was clamoring for some sort of investiture. Otherwise “I’m not going to make a bad impression”, even if the term used with an anonymous interlocutor was more brutal.
“We are among those who are needlessly suspended,” says a passing councilor, citing Virgil’s limbo, and when asked for explanations on the insertion of the adverb, he escalates the issue with an addition of lyricism. “We are living in a time in between, between before and after.” These are the moods that exude from a regional government that until Tuesday morning had Liguria in its hands, no credible political threat on the horizon, and now finds itself counting the days, marked by already scheduled official commitments which instead of being filled by he halo of grandeur dear to Giovanni Toti, become an ordeal for those who appear in his place.
Just behind the obligatory declarations, the closeness to the leader in distress and the hope for immediate clarity, among the Ligurian majority lies a clear sense of bewilderment and the certainty that this cannot continue for long. There is still a tomorrow for the Ligurian center-right, but it doesn’t promise to be the best. If he falls, everyone falls, as stated in the statute of the Liguria Region, which in the event of resignation or no confidence of the president in office provides for the decay of the entire regional council.
«Man must be given the opportunity to decide his own path, without asking him to think about anything other than the situation that concerns him». Last January, with a dinner in a well-known restaurant in his hometown of Imperia, Claudio Scajola had made an agreement with Toti, creating an alliance between centre-right citizens in view of the next regional elections, which were scheduled for autumn 2025. For a couple of years now, the two strongest names in Ligurian politics had put aside their differences to focus on their affinities. «In the history of this region, it has never happened that a sitting president was arrested. I therefore believe that any choice must be considered very carefully. But of course, it is difficult to carry on as if nothing had happened.”
“New elections immediately” demands the regional and city Democratic Party in an unusually harsh note, which is already thinking about possible strong candidates, trusting in the impossibility of a third consecutive refusal by Andrea Orlando from La Spezia, a name that could also bring an agreement to what remains of the Ligurian Five Stars. Brothers of Italy, who sooner or later should have expressed their opinion on the governor’s declared desire to run for a third consecutive term, suddenly finds himself in charge of a council currently led by a Northern League member. But if his already precarious situation were to worsen, he would have identified some possible candidates, including the former deputy mayor of Genoa Massimo Nicolò. The League sympathizes and remains silentaware of the fact that the deputy minister of Infrastructure Edoardo Rixi, to whom Toti was preferred nine years ago, has little desire to participate in a race which, given the events, promises to be uncertain.
«There are evaluations that need to be made», concludes the wise Scajola, speaking of the future. “And something will have to be built.” In the evening, the meeting of Ligurian parliamentarians expressed “full support for the regional council and vice president Piana”, without ever mentioning Toti. But at the time of writing, it is not yet known who will represent Liguria in Turin today. How miserable life is in power vacuums.
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May 9, 2024
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