Alessandra Todde's response to Beppe Grillo's attacks came the next day, on the sidelines of a majority summit in the Regional Council. Yesterday, the M5S founder wrote in his blog about a government focused on personal enrichment.
"Yesterday was the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, so I would respond with the Franciscan greeting, 'Peace and goodness,'" said the regional president. "It's one thing to attack a movement that is growing without its founder, that is finding directions that don't involve him, and which therefore could provoke a negative reaction from him; it's another thing to address the substance of the matter."
And on this point, Todde recalls that "we inherited a Region with nine thousand projects and a NRRP at 4%, and it was important to deliver results. Moreover, a proposal to amend Law 10 (the "seat-filling" law approved in the previous legislature) is already before the Council. We never appointed heads of departments, the legislative office, the research office, or other existing positions. We used the people we deemed useful for the work we needed to do."
In essence, Todde justifies the use of the staff law with the need to complete the implementation of the NRRP projects. "Why didn't we abolish the staff law? We inherited a stagnant administration, with so many projects to complete, and a significant regional presentation didn't imply a populist response, but rather a responsible one. Our first task was to govern the region, to ensure we completed the projects, and that's what we did. Obviously, with responsibility. If we'd simply needed a boost to employment, we would have appointed whoever we could."