“Today an act of war was signed against the city of Bari.” So begins the statement published on social networks by the mayor of the capital of Puglia, Antonio Decaro. The mayor announced that he had been informed by telephone by Minister Matteo Piantedosi of the appointment of an access commission aimed at verifying a hypothesis of dissolution of the municipality of Bari, a ministerial body which will have the task of verifying the allegations of mafia infiltration. in the municipal council of the city of Puglia and in other municipal companies. This decision comes after the arrest of 130 people as part of an investigation by the Antimafia of Bari into an alleged link with the mafia and politics, with the possibility of vote trading, during the 2019 municipal elections. According to Decaro, the document signed by the Minister of the Interior constitutes “a very serious act, which aims to sabotage the regular course of democratic life in the city of Bari, precisely (by chance) on the eve of the elections”. Elections, recalls the mayor, “that the center-right of Bari has lost for twenty years in a row”.
Decaro, he himself declares in the message published on social networks, was responsible for collecting all the activities carried out by his municipality against organized crime. A file “made up of 23 files and thousands of pages”, specifies the mayor, submitted Monday January 18 at 12 p.m. Today, a little over 24 hours after the submission of the file, Decaro was informed of the commission's appointment. “It is obvious, given the speed with which the news of the Commission's appointment arrived, that no one bothered to read these newspapers. Political pressure from the center-right in Bari therefore had more value than facts, complaints, documents and testimonies. It is a shameful and very serious matter, which goes against the city, against respectable citizens, against the mayor”, attacks Decaro again. In the post published on social networks, the mayor of Bari therefore promises total resistance: ” I will oppose this attack with all my being, as I opposed the mafiosi of this city. If this were the last act of my political experience. I will not remain silent.”
Cover photo: ANSA/Luca Zennaro | The president of Anci and mayor of Bari, Antonio Decaro, during the 40th Anci conference in Genoa (October 26, 2023)
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