Politics
Of Giuseppe Ariola – May 13, 2024
Exactly one week has passed since the arrest of the president of Liguria Giovanni Toti, who was placed under house arrest as required by the order signed by the investigating judge Paola Maggioni on charges of corruption. If you count the days it is because time is a fundamental factor for the fate of both the governor and the Region. It is evident that it is difficult to move forward in this situation and make Giovanni Toti resist at the top of the administration, although suspended from office, crippled by the judicial investigation and politically ousted due to the precautionary measure to which he is subjected. To the silence maintained during the guarantee interrogation, justified by the need to study 9 thousand pages of documents before being able to formulate explanations and provide answers to the magistrates, already in the next few days, at the request of the lawyer Stefano Savi, the Ligurian president should be subjected to questioning by prosecutors Luca Monteverde and Vittorio Miniati in an attempt to demonstrate the correctness of their actions. A choice certainly dictated by the defensive strategy, but also by political reasons, in an attempt to break an impasse which on the one hand embarrasses the political allies and, on the other, raises a gigantic question about the fate of the governor. Having provided their explanations to the magistrates, the investigating judge will be asked to revoke the house arrest and, in the event of rejection, Toti’s defense will present a request for release to the Review Court. The cessation of the precautionary measures would give the governor of Liguria an important share of the political viability which, obviously, he currently completely lacks. A need to stay in the saddle and resist the opposition’s request for resignation and a certain hesitation about how to move forward that is starting to take hold even among the majority. Although several ministers, including Guido Crosetto, Carlo Nordio and Francesco Lollobrigida, as well as the two deputy prime ministers, Antonio Tajani and Matteo Salvini, have raised doubts about the timing of the investigation and the choice to arrest Toti as a preventive measure, in the centre-right there is no mystery of the difficulty in managing the issue. It is no coincidence that the governor of Liguria himself is meditating on what to do and on the possibility of taking a step back, a hypothesis which however must be well thought out and, above all, agreed with the allies, especially because it leads to an early return of the Ligurian citizens at the polls. It goes without saying that this potential confrontation could only materialize in the event of his release from prison and that the timing, at least to manage the issue from a political point of view, also becomes fundamental. The current state certainly does not allow us to move forward without a precise deadline beyond which a decision will necessarily have to be made, one way or the other. Furthermore, the investigation exploded just before the European elections, or rather, precisely because of the approach of the consultations, as the investigating judge clearly wrote in the order, and risks having repercussions on the outcome of the vote.
In the meantime, in light of the accusations made against Toti, relating to funding received from the electoral committee in support of political activity which, according to what was announced by the lawyer Savi, would all be traced and regularly documented, against the background of the Ligurian case the the discussion on contributions to parties. The Northern League deputy minister Edoardo Rixi even provocatively referred to a return to the old system of public financing after appearing amazed by the fact that speeding up an administrative measure “can become a crime just because I once met the entrepreneur”. Same guaranteeist line used by Secretary Salvini for whom “if every suspect has to resign, Italy will stop tomorrow”.
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