Whether this is an “investigation effect” will probably be determined by the next steps in the legal case involving the governor Giovanni Totito date (pending the evaluation of the revocation request presented today) still under house arrest.
It is difficult, however, with the numbers and map of the European vote in hand, to say that there has been no impact of the corruption scandal on the voting orientation of the Ligurians and the Genoese in particular, as various exponents of the regional centre-right have been quick to predict in recent days .
TO Genoa, the city that a month ago woke up in the aftershocks of the earthquake that overwhelmed the Region and its majority, the Democratic Party flies at plus ten over FdI: 31 percent against 21.5. A figure which, added to the 12 percent of the M5s and the exploit of Avs (9.5), together with the collapse of the League (6.3) and the numbers of Forza Italia (6.5), clearly says that the progressive camp , in the city of the investigation, is currently the new majority.
The distinctions, in the analysis of the Genoese vote, are many, and necessary. The civic component that made Mayor Marco Bucci’s center-right triumph two years ago, for example, was missing from the European vote. And it must be said that the growth of the Genoese PD, in the wake of a renewal of the party that began ahead of the national scene, is the result of work that began years ago (even in the 2022 elections, the Dems were the city’s leading party). But the data remains, especially if integrated with the percentages of the European vote in the regional context.
In Liguria, a region effectively without a leader, waiting to understand Toti’s fate, the distant comparison between the preferences of FdI and Pd lasted until the last section to be stripped. Meloni’s party confirms itself as the leading party in the region with just 3 thousand more votes (26.7 against 26.2) than the Dems, who grew by four points compared to the Politicians. Avs reaches 7.6 percent, the M5s stands at the national average (10 percent), the League drops (8.9) but at least in the Ligurian context holds on to FI (8.4, just).
Far from the threshold of IV and Action, with Calenda’s party exceeding 4 only in Genoa, thanks to the strong candidacy of the municipal councilor Cristina Lodi, in Liguria to date the two possible (for now only hypothetical) opposing coalitions, center-right and progressive centre-left, seem to be neck and neck, with the current minority in the lead: adding the votes of the forces of the progressive camp comes to 44.1 percent, those of the centre-right to 44.
A rediscovered bipolarism, in fact, with the center-left clearly growing over the center-right, which allows us to glimpse new, possible scenarios. The Democratic Party with the definitive consecration to lead the progressive table in the test of possible early regional elections, in the event of Toti’s farewell. And the confirmation of FdI, still the first party and on the regional territory, which could lead Melonian leaders to look with greater confidence at the hypothesis of a closer end to the Toti era.
A year and a half after the elections, Meloni’s party also proves to be strong in Liguria, even if the number one FdI candidate in Liguria, Stefano Balleari, is unlikely to enter Parliament in Strasbourg and continues to be the coldest force on the future of governor among those in the majority. Any early lessons, net of the risk of going to the polls after a judicial scandal, would also allow us to cash in on the subject of relations within the center-right at the best time.
