Liguria on the vote, how much will the ballot box verdict weigh on Meloni and Schlein

A local election test inevitably reflects nationwide, and the opening of polling stations in Liguria - voting takes place on Sunday 28 October and Monday 29 - is no exception. Victory or defeat will not cause earthquakes. Rather adjustments. Significant ones, though. Especially for the two main protagonists: Giorgia Meloni and Elly Schlein.

It was the prime minister, who continues to remain at the top of the polls in terms of approval ratings, who wanted the mayor of Genoa Marco Bucci as candidate for governor of the region, the man behind the reconstruction of the Morandi Bridge, to remove the shadow of his predecessor, Giovanni Toti, who was arrested in May for corruption, resigned as president of Liguria in July, who bargained in mid-September for a two-year sentence of community service. His allies, his two deputies, Matteo Salvini and Antonio Tajani, accepted Bucci's appointment willingly, keeping their focus on the internal derby between the League and Forza Italia. The mayor's choice was therefore not theirs, and so the result, come what may, will be attributed to the premier. Who this time decided not to fish among her loyalists - as she had always done until now - but to look outside her Brothers. A step not to be underestimated given also the manifest difficulties of her ruling class.

Paradoxically, however, Elly Schlein has to handle the most complicated game. What seemed to be a downhill election, given the initial difficulties of the other side, is instead turning out to be a challenge in which there is much more to lose than to gain. First and foremost for her. So far the Dem secretary has almost always won her bets, including the last one, the European elections in July with the Dems at 24%. But in that case the PD like all parties played a solo race, without having to deal with alliances as is the case in this election. If Andrea Orlando - the candidate of the Broad Fields, former Guardasigilli and Minister of Labour as well as Ligurian to the core - does not make it, despite the Toti case, a non-trivial crack would open up for the Dem leader. All the more so if the distance between victory and defeat were to oscillate around that 2% of votes that would have guaranteed him the extension of the coalition to the renziani of Italia viva, put at the door by the veto of M5s and Giuseppe Conte himself. The same Conte who decided, with the stop to the 300 thousand euro contract for communication, to 'sack' the founder of his party, the Genoese Beppe Grillo, a handful of days before the vote in Liguria where among the candidates there is also a loyal follower of the Elevato, the former M5s senator Nicola Morra. The defeat would therefore open an internal 'reflection' in the PD that would inevitably put Schlein in the dock first of all.

For the verdict, however, we will have to wait for the second test of this autumn election in Emilia Romagna and Umbria, which will be held in about twenty days, on 17-18 November. We will be in the midst of the debate on the budget manoeuvre, the formation of the new European Commission, with the vote on Raffaele Fitto as executive vice-president expected a few days earlier. And, above all, the results of the American elections, which are destined to have a far greater influence on national politics than the regional results, will also be known.