Will Renzi return to the center-right bandwagon in Genoa?
Direct and indirect effects of the tensions between Conte and Renzi on Genoa and beyond. Damato 's Scratches
Marco Bucci, the mayor of Genoa who leads the centre-right in the early regional elections following the fall of Giovanni Toti after a long house arrest, must have breathed a sigh of relief at Giuseppe Conte's no, suffered by the Democratic Party, to the participation of the Renzians in the broad field of the so-called center-left. Now objectively less broad, even if Matteo Renzi limited himself to declaring himself "outside the electoral campaign", knowing that this does not mean he will be able to materially, politically and legally keep the voters of his party, whether few or many, out of the polling stations at the end of the month. Italia Viva. Which in the political elections two years ago took, together with Carlo Calenda's Azione in the so-called third pole, almost 7 and a half percent of the votes.
Although few, the Renzian votes in retaliation for the treatment received together from Conte and the Democratic Party, and from the candidate for the presidency of the Ligurian region Andrea Orlando, could prove decisive in favor of Bucci. Who knows this very well and immediately took action to attract them, not even behind the scenes, knowing that he had already been able to count on you in the second mayoral election, in 2022, when Renzi had already struck out on his own, leaving the Democratic Party in 2019.
The now even more possible courting of the votes of the Renzians frustrated by the treatment received from the left, where many of them had perhaps already found themselves uncomfortable in the few months that have passed since their leader's decision to look, so to speak, into the broad field of the alternative, it is also useful to Bucci to deal with the damage somehow caused to him on the centre-right side by Giovanni Toti by agreeing with the Genoa Prosecutor's Office for "improper corruption" two years and one month of socially useful work, an equal number of disqualification from holding public offices and the confiscation of 84 thousand euros or so of electoral financing received from private individuals. To which others could be added for investigations carried out by investigators after agreements with the prosecution to be examined by the judge.
Justice Minister Carlo Nordio has just tried to give Bucci a hand, admittedly surprised – I don't think with satisfaction – by Toti's decision to plea bargain, rather than allow himself to be tried according to the initial reactions to his arrest. Who in an interview with the Giornale , also dedicated to other topics, asked himself precisely in relation to Toti and his renunciation of the trial, "why the magistrates accepted a plea bargain on a minor crime, after years of wiretaps – complex and I fear very expensive – which I believe were requested and authorized for much more serious crimes". A question, that of Nordio, double in value due to his current role as Minister of Justice and past as prosecuting magistrate.
Although now sweetened, I repeat, by such an authoritative intervention as that of Nordio, Toti's plea bargain has weighed and continues to weigh on Bucci's electoral campaign, if only for the polemical ideas offered to the rival of the mayor of Genoa, Orlando, He too is already Minister of Justice. Controversial points from which Bucci had been somehow protected, at the time of his candidacy, by Forza Italia secretary Antonio Tajani. Who had spoken in an interview in the editorial office of Secolo XIX Ligure about a "Toti era" now behind us. So much so that perhaps a return to the former governor's politics is unlikely, even after the ban from holding public office negotiated with the prosecution has expired. It is no coincidence that he has already returned to his journalistic profession as an assiduous editorialist, at least for now, of the Angelucci and Berlusconi family newspaper , both in alphabetical order and in order of participation in the ownership of the newspaper founded 50 years ago by Indro Montanelli.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/matteo-renzi-genova/ on Tue, 01 Oct 2024 06:37:19 +0000.