Let’s clear the field of simplifications. With the end of the Toti presidency in Liguria Totism has not automatically died out, understood as contiguity between public and private interests. Politics driven by business is independent of him and the advent of a president without a party (or, better, a president-party) has found fertile ground. Whoever comes after will have to seriously distance themselves from a system fed in a territory that first made it possible.
Because a region where money has never stopped circulating, albeit in increasingly restricted environments, is a land that can easily become sprawling.
Especially if the infernal machine of narration makes us believe that to make it march, to make it progress more quickly, this region must be governed by rounding off the edges. And by buying people “like greased paper”.
Liguria, on the other hand, needs a mature policy, who knows how to consciously face the difficulties of administration without having to resort to illegal shortcuts. Easy management of complexity does not exist, except in a corrupt world.
This awareness is the fundamental sign that must distinguish the construction of the next government of the Regionwith all the gravity that this entails. Otherwise these eighty days of suspension on the brink, from Toti’s arrest to his resignation, will not even have served to develop a useful reflection.
Thinking that the disease is over is an illusion, on the contrary, it is now that a powerful dose of antibiotics is needed.
Drawing a line and starting over won’t be easy. And perhaps forgetting would not even be useful. Instead, we must speak without fear of what has happened in recent years in Liguria, analyzing the reasons and identifying the corrective measures with which the parties will have to restore a clear boundary between what is legal and what is not. If that boundary appears blurred to those under investigation, so much so that Toti declared to the magistrates that he had acted “for the good of Liguria” without ever disavowing his actions, then we need to rediscover the deep roots of that common good. Focus on what it really is. An efficient health system, quality employment, a healthy industry, shared economic development, sustainable tourism, necessary social cohesion. Widespread well-being. But not at the expense of morality, which remains the most precious principle to look after. Primary, not accessory.
A comparison within parties and coalitions is more essential than ever. They will not have to deal only with candidacies at the political tables. Also with programs, of course, and objectives. Recovering lost credibility and respect for citizens should be at the top of the list.
An interesting season is opening up if national politics decides not to treat this region, which has suddenly ended up in the dust, like a Cinderella. For both the centre-right and the centre-left, Liguria can become a laboratory. In the coalition that has governed so far, the balance of power may be recorded and it will be seen whether the parties will be able to be attractive again also for all the interests centrifugally channeled into Toti’s civic movement. On the left, the Ligurian challenge will be the testing ground for a very broad field that cannot coagulate only around the hope of an easy victory and that will have to deal with the idiosyncrasies and crossed vetoes.
In these three months that separate them from the polls, Ligurians are called to do an exercise in common sense. Stay away from rhetoric, victim mentality, legalism, from those who use the investigation for private purposes or for political battles that have nothing to do with Liguria. If citizens are the first to show the seriousness they deserve, politicians will not be able to ignore them. It will be the voters, and not just the PNRR funds to be spent and the projects to be carried out, who will make Liguria a better place.
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