The internal decision of the Regional Electoral Guarantee College on the dismissal of the President of the Sardinia Region, Alessandra Todde, explodes in Parliament.

Sardinian MPs from Forza Italia, Fratelli d'Italia and Lega have presented an urgent question to the Minister of Justice, denouncing "serious irregularities and strong concerns" in the management of the dispute relating to the latest regional elections and requesting immediate inspections.

In the crosshairs is precisely President Todde, sanctioned by the College for violations of the law on transparency of electoral expenses (law 515/1993). Among the irregularities contested: the absence of the electoral agent, the failure to use a dedicated current account and the use of a report referable to a third-party committee. A situation that, according to the parliamentarians, prevents them from accurately reconstructing the expenses of the campaign.

But the most critical passage concerns a procedural choice within the College : the revocation, without motivation, of the mandate of the lawyer Riccardo Fercia, defender of the body in the ongoing trials, also before the Constitutional Court. The act bears the signature of the new acting president, Massimo Costantino Poddighe.

According to the deputies, this is an anomalous decision, which has left the College without a technical defense just as decisive steps are being discussed . Complicating the situation is the personal relationship between Poddighe and Marcella Marchioni, appointed by the Todde Council first to the Directorate of Financial Services, then as Secretary General of the Region: the two appear to be cohabiting.

A possible conflict of interest, according to the opposition, which "undermines the autonomy and independence of the judiciary" and which makes direct intervention by Minister Carlo Nordio necessary. The question, in fact, asks to evaluate disciplinary responsibilities and the activation of ministerial inspections at the Court of Appeal of Cagliari.

Below is the full question presented to the Minister of Justice by the Honourable Members: Pittalis, Mura, Giagoni, Calderone, Costa, Bellomo, Deidda, Lampis, Polo.

On 20/12/2024, the Regional Electoral Guarantee Board at the Court of Appeal of Cagliari, chaired by Dr. Gemma Cucca, issued an order to pay a pecuniary sanction to the President of the Sardinia Region, Alessandra Todde, in relation to very serious violations of the provisions of Law No. 515/1993, and in particular in relation to the failure to appoint an electoral agent, the failure to open a dedicated current account, and the presentation of a report by someone else, not attributable to a candidate or the party of the list to which he belongs, but to the M5S Electoral Committee, which Senator Licheri declared to the Court of Auditors that he intervened "in favor not only of the candidate president, but of all the candidates of the M5S list and of the entire coalition", with the consequent impossibility of reconstructing the individual income and expenses of the candidate Todde and the transmission of the documents to the Public Prosecutor's Office at the Court of Cagliari in relation to the declarations filed by her, as antinomic self-certifications, the first certifying contributions and expenses through the Committee's financial statement, the second certifying the opposite for having made use of propaganda materials and means made available to the party on whose lists she was a candidate (the 5 Star Movement and not the Electoral Committee); President Todde filed an objection against this order before the Civil Court of Cagliari (no. 477/2025 RG), and a conflict of attributions was raised, at the initiative of the Sardinia Region, before the Constitutional Court (no. 2/2025); on 3/4/2025 the Board deliberated, pursuant to art. 7, Legislative Decree 165/2011, the in-house assignment, free of charge and with the exclusion of reimbursement of any travel expenses, of one's own technical defense, both before the Court of Cagliari and before the Constitutional Court, to Prof. Avv. Riccardo Fercia, member of the same guarantee body;

on 13/4/2025, President Cucca left office due to retirement and was replaced, as Acting President, by Dr. Massimo Costantino Poddighe who, together with other members of the Electoral College of Guarantee, resolved, on 2/5/2025, to revoke the defense mandate of Prof. Avv. Fercia, without even replacing him, both in the proceedings before the Civil Court and in the proceedings before the Constitutional Court; it appears of extraordinary and unheard of gravity to have deprived, completely unmotivated, said body of the necessary technical defense, if one considers that it is not permitted - even more so for those who hold top jurisdictional functions - to frustrate and suppress the free and correct exercise of the right to defense of the Body that detected and sanctioned the aforementioned conduct in violation of specific provisions of Law 515/1993; moreover, as can be seen from the defence documents, the activity of Prof. Avv. Fercia was limited to protecting, from a legal and factual perspective, the legitimacy of the contested provision, unless, with the revocation of the defence mandate, there was an intention to interfere with the progress of the ongoing disputes, in contempt and violation of the principles of third party, independence and impartiality of the judicial order; the conflict of interests regarding the Acting President is evident. Poddighe, who, according to what is known from the reports of Prof. Avv. Fercia, appears to be the cohabiting husband of Dr. Marcella Marchioni, appointed by the Regional Council, chaired by the appellant President Todde, as Director General of the Financial Services of the Region and, last March 10, also appointed ad interim Secretary General of the Region: - what initiatives the Minister intends to take, also through the activation of his inspection powers, in order to ascertain any disciplinary responsibilities on the part of the Acting President of the Court of Appeal of Cagliari in the matter described in the introduction, to protect the autonomy and independence of the judiciary.

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