La Liguria remains in the hands of the center-right. The mayor of Genoa, Marco Bucci, defeated, albeit by a narrow margin (48,8%), the centre-left (47,4%) led by the former minister of the Democratic Party, Andrea Orlando. Not even the corruption scandal that hit the former president of the Region, John Toti, stopped the centre-right.
It was decisive the veto that the leader of the Five Stars, Giuseppe Conte, has placed a burden on Italia Viva Matteo Renzi, which could have turned out to be the real swing vote in the Ligurian elections. In this way Conte ends up straight in the dock but the one who pays the price is the Pd which, despite being the leading party in the region, saw its conquest of Liguria snatched away from it by Conte's own goal.
Pd first party, M5S debacle
Il Pd is the first party of Liguria and exceeds, with a real exploit, the 28 percent of consensus. Followed by Fdi at 14,8%, the civic list that supports the new governor at 9,4%, then Lega at 8,5%, Forza Italia at 7,9% and Avs at 6,2%. After the two civic lists that supported Orlando, both above 5%, comes the M5S which stopped at only 4,6%, more than halved compared to the 10,2 percent of the European elections and the 12,7 percent of the 2022 political elections.
The reactions
"You call me president? I want to be called the mayor of Liguria. Write it down“, said the new governor of Liguria Marco Bucci, during a press conference at his polling station.
“It means - he added - maintaining our style as mayors, therefore our talking to citizens, our being on the territory. It is a relationship with citizens that I want to maintain. Our task is to serve citizens and not to be served”.
“Bucci won by a narrow margin, but now there are the conditions to continue the battle and win in the administrative elections, which was something he failed to do in this round,” said the centre-left candidate Andrea Orlando after the defeat. “We paid for some difficulties in the wide field which also had repercussions on our reality", added Orlando.
"Congratulations to Marco Bucci for his victory in the regional elections in Liguria! Once again, the united centre-right has been able to respond to the expectations of citizens, who confirm their trust in our policies and in the concreteness of our projects", wrote the Prime Minister and leader of FdI on social media Giorgia Meloni. “With his leadership, Liguria will be able to count on a capable and determined administrator, ready to work tirelessly for the good of all Ligurians – adds Meloni -. Forward, together, with the same dedication that guides our action throughout Italy”.
"The Democratic Party has given its all, it is the first party, we are doubling the second which is Brothers of Italy, growing by more than two points from the European elections and nine points from the regional elections of 2020, where there was a higher turnout. When participation drops it is a problem for everyone but especially for the left". "We are aware that we are not enough on our own, we also pay for the difficulties of others and we hope that this result makes all the alternative forces to the right reflect as it makes us reflect, we who have never spent a minute in polemics or competitions with the other oppositions because our opponent is this right that we want to beat". This is the comment of the secretary of the Democratic Party, Elly Schlein.
“It's a disappointing result, below expectations,” he said. Giuseppe Conte, leader of the M5S. “We are not hiding behind a finger. A responsibility that confirms the absolute necessity of re-establishing the Movement, starting from the activities of rooting in the territories – which we have undertaken but which are still not sufficient. A deficiency of which we were fully aware already after the European vote in June and to which the M5S responded by starting a process of participation and collegial discussion, precisely because it understood the need for an authentic relaunch. The constituent assembly is for us a crucial moment of restart, a moment that we know well also passes through phases of difficulty and moments like the one we are experiencing today”.
“Today, the ones who lost the most are those who conceive politics as a personal clash, as a combination of antipathies and revenge,” wrote the former prime minister and leader of Italia Viva on X Matthew Renzi. "Whoever vetoes loses. Those who don't care about winning but only want to exclude and hate have lost. Giuseppe Conte has lost, of course, and all those who with him have raised vetoes against Italia Viva". "Only my personal preferences for the European elections - he added - would have been enough to change the outcome of the challenge, only those. Having placed a veto on the Italia Viva community has led the center-left to defeat. Without the center you can't win: Basilicata demonstrated it a few months ago, Liguria confirms it today. We'll see if anyone wants to learn from this lesson". The 5S's response was immediate: "With Renzi we would have only lost more votes"
(Last update: 7.59 on 29 October).
