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FROM REGISTRATION TO MONTALCINO. About him The gentle and combed hills of Montalcino are staged in a sequence that tells the story of the strange challenge in Tuscany with a view to the election of the new president of the region: in the diocesan museum it is afternoon, about thirty farmers have been half an hour waiting, when Eugenio Giani finally appears. At that moment the mayor of Montalcino raises his voice: “You all know him, he is the center-left candidate for the presidency of the Region …”. Silence. Mayor Franceschelli is forced to insist: “I would give you applause …”. 55 minutes of questions follow, ranging from wild boars to olives, in the end Giani takes the floor and reveals his repertoire: not even a concession to rhetoric or special effects, culminating in a promise that displaces the public: “I will not have technical advisers , because after a while those go with their tails between their legs. ”Final applause: 7 seconds.
This is Eugenio Giani, the anti-character. Elegant in his posture, refined in his speech, never an insult to his opponents, but unable to convey pathos. On the shoulders of this remarkable 62-year-old Florentine who entered politics some thirty years ago, hangs a heavy burden: the honor (and power) of the left in Tuscany, the penultimate red fortress, after the fall of Umbria. Giuseppe Conte looks at Giani with a thread of anxiety and with growing anxiety Nicola Zingaretti: losing right here – and for the benefit of the League – could produce an avalanche effect in the direction of the Democratic Party: for Veltroni it was enough to lose moderate Sardinia to resign party secretary.
Well, 16 days after the end of the electoral campaign of the left, anxiety skyrockets. Not only because the challengers have been on par in the polls for a month (now the only compass for the media and politicians), but above all because the business of making an encore of Emilia in Tuscany is proving complicated: Giani is not Bonaccini ( that he had invented “Emilian sovereignty”), while Ceccardi-Salvini “learned the lesson of Bergonzoni-Salvini,” notes Professor Paolo Armaroli, alluding to that winter campaign that was national, Salvinian and anti-Emilian.
Who has understood is Susanna Ceccardi. Thirty-three years, the first mayor of the Northern League in Tuscany, a determination that made her the “lioness” of Salvini, for several weeks Ceccardi has vanished the role of the fundamentalist, the one who had the courage to give her daughter named after Kinzica, the heroine who would have saved Pisa from the invasion of the Saracens. Or who has uttered phrases like this: “Whoever accuses me of caring more about the life of a Chihuahua than the life of an immigrant, does not understand that Chihuahuas do not reach our shores by the thousands.” In the electoral campaign, Ceccardi, while remaining aggressive, is very careful not to repeat those jokes that have made her “famous” and at the beginning of August she marched in the commemorative procession of the anniversary of the Liberation of Florence. And the images that come from all the provinces of the “countryside” relaunch a sentiment, corroborated by the most serious polls: the Democratic Party holds up well in central Tuscany (Florence, Prato, Empoli) but gives way in the other areas.
A landslide that reaches far away. The center-right won the mayoralty in 6 of the 10 capitals (Arezzo, Grosseto, Massa Carrara, Pisa, Pistoia, Siena) and in the European elections a year ago the percentage of these three parties (42.2%) exceeded the center-left by 3 and a half points. Therefore, contrary to what is repeated, the true “miracle” must be achieved by Giani: to compensate for an accumulated disadvantage before his arrival. A left-wing socialist in the eighties, councilor and councilor for the Democratic Party, Eugenio Giani is carrying out an electoral campaign marked by some originalities. On the one hand: in early August he posted a movie on Facebook that portrays him in a bathing suit taking a dip standing up in a bush at the origin of thethe Arno, a fun “feat” that would like to allude to a youthful vigor and that “roughness” which is one of his favorite refrains. Giani also keeps outgoing governor Enrico Rossi in the dock who, according to 75 percent of the Tuscans interviewed, has handled the Covid emergency in a positive way but on the other hand Matteo Renzi has moved in recent days, to try to comply a promise (“Italia Viva will exceed 10 percent”) that is off the radar of all pollsters.
But in the end, how much will Covid weigh on a fearful electorate? In the days of the vote, to what extent will those over 65, the natural basin of Giani, defy the dangers of the virus? How much will the call for a useful vote weigh on voters today attracted by the candidates of the Five Stars and the left-wing? A wise old man like Valdo Spini says: “Giani proposed himself as the silent force.” The bet is exactly that, also because Giani has to deal with it almost alone, or at least this was the sentiment of the insiders who heard the last assist from Nicola Zingaretti: “It is time to fight knowing that what is at stake is not a name or a candidate, but the future of a community, the future of Tuscany ».
