“With a political short-sightedness with rare precedents, today, with this motion of no confidence, the opposition is attempting a political push which will not succeed“. Giovanni Toti he isn’t there, but his words resonate forcefully in the hall of the Ligurian Regional Council, where a real political target practice is taking place. And the target is clearly him, the regional president who has been under house arrest for almost a month on charges of corruption and forgery as part of an investigation which in the meantime continues to be controversial. However, through the voice of Toti’s advisor Alessandro Bozzano, the governor reiterates his reasons and rejects the left’s attempted assault. He does it with confident tones, which in the Genoa courtroom make the opposition heat up. The confrontation continues – not without tension – for a few hours, then the fateful vote arrives and the numbers are all in favor of Toti and his council: 18 votes against to the motion of no confidence against 11 in favour.
“After a decade of constant defeats political and electoral, the same ruling class of the left, which was able to disappoint the citizens more than any other, in a Region where its traditions were very strong, today glimpses, thanks to an investigation by the judiciary, the possibility of recovering some of the lost ground. It does so by exploiting the echo of an investigation which at the moment is just that, without indictments and much less without convictions“, Giovanni Toti had attacked in his letter to the chamber. And the opposition in the Regional Council climbed onto the barricades. Thus confirming the president’s thesis; that is, that of a political move in the wake of a legal case. “Toti’s resignation is a necessary political act, the investigation which hit Liguria, decapitating the administrative capacity of the Liguria Region and the port of Genoa, demonstrated the political and managerial failure of which the centre-right is the protagonist, a political degeneration and public ethics that has expropriated democracy“, chanted the group leader Democratic party in the Region, Luca Garibaldi.
While the debate heats up, Matteo Salvini comes in full force in defense of the governor: “Proud of the Liguria model, in the face of those who dream of shouldering taking advantage of investigations in the middle of the electoral campaign. We are talking about a region capable of growing and modernizing: no one will stop the renaissance of this land“. And in Genoa the oppositions make matters worse. In the chamber, among others, the councilor and group leader speaks Ferruccio Sansa: “I feel pity rather than hatred towards Toti, we are not discussing him here, but about a much bigger thing that concerns our country, not just Liguria and not even Genoa. From accused Toti became a victim and then a martyr, now even a judge, the accused of corruption and forgery even becomes a judge, ‘the rules are bad’: this is the message, the shortcuts, the corruption, the intrigues even with the mafia they make Liguria better, a subversive way of thinking“. And again: “We must think about Liguria and not about our sides. We have to say that we are on one side, calling ourselves out is not possible.”
Listening to the opposition, it almost seems that Giovanni Toti doesn’t even have the right to defend himself and claim a government action that brought positive results in Liguria. On this point, the president gives a blow to the opposition: “Your Liguria was a land in the shadows, happy to take a step back, in the hope that by disappearing from the political map the mediocrity of its ruling class would also disappear (…) Today Liguria is a model of ability to choose, of attracting investments, of speed of implementatione”. Hence, the request to the chamber to confirm the confidence to continue the administrative action undertaken. The centre-right majority is clearly in favor of this and the interim president of the Region is making the obvious position clear, Alessandro Piana.
“There guarantor position of the Regional Council is based on the art. 27 of the Constitution and in the sense of responsibility. Despite the climate created by some communication operators ready for preventive media condemnation, through moral and political lynching, the Liguria Region has demonstrated that it knows how to continue its activity and that of the bodies involved, without any pause“, declares the Northern League representative during the heated session of the Regional Council, enumerating the objectives obtained by the council in favor of the Ligurians. “The centre-right majority is united – at the service of all Ligurians, and not just those who voted for it by an overwhelming majority – in claiming a development model that has brought tangible results and in confirming its trust in the democratically elected president“, he reiterates.
The left gets in the way: it counterattacks and attacks with the vote.
But in the end the numbers prove Toti right: shoulder attack failed. The promoters of the no-confidence motion, i.e. the Democratic Party, M5S, Linea Condivisa and Lista Sansa to reject Toti, were defeated.
