He cannot hold back his tears at the end of his speech in the Bari city council room. A room full of citizens to listen to the mayor. Antonio Decaro. Among them also those who actively participated, by endangering themselves and their loved ones, in the fight against “the 14 mafia clans” present in this territory.
“Today's tears were linked to the presence of people whom I helped free from the noose of usury and who, knowing about the press conference, voluntarily decided to come. They greeted me and cried with me, because these are the people I convinced to denounce.”
THEThe mayor once again speaks of “an act of war” which requires “self-defense” of “the city which has long been “fighting the mafia head-on”. There are only three months left before the vote on the renewal of the administration municipal and Decaro, he believes that it is a center-right approach aimed at “polluting the electoral campaign and having the match canceled”. In Bari, they have been losing money for 20 years – he says – and some of them, like Savastano in Gomorrah, say ‘let’s go take the city back.’ But the city belongs to the people of Bari, it doesn’t belong to anyone.”
The decision to send the commission was taken by the Ministry of the Interior, at the instigation of center-right parliamentarians, after the arrests of February 26, the epilogue of the Interior Code investigation which revealed an alleged exchange politico-mafia of the voting system in municipal elections. of 2019. Due to mafia infiltration, the municipal urban transport company, Amtab, was also subject to judicial administration for a year. In addition, the Ministry of the Interior will send an inspection to the Prefecture of Bari following the case, revealed during an investigation, of the official who approached a suspect close to the clan to recover the car that had been stolen from him .
There are also among the 130 people who ended up in prison and under house arrest Carmen Lorussocouncilor elected with the center-right then passed to the majority of Decaro and her husband Giacomo Olivieriformer regional councilor.
“This government – replied the Minister of the Interior Matteo Piantedosi – declared war on the mafias and certainly not on local administrators. I understand the bitterness of the mayor of Bari” but “since he has been in power, our government has already dissolved 15 predominantly center-right municipalities”.
Decaro, who reportedly had a meeting with Piantedosi last week to discuss the matter, nevertheless offered his “full collaboration” to the commissioners whose report, which could also contain the possibility of dissolving the municipality, should arrive within ten days the first round of voting. the elections which will be held on June 8 and 9, and therefore in the middle of the electoral campaign for a possible second round.
Total solidarity with the mayor was expressed by some mayors and representatives of the center-left. For the leader of the Democratic Party, Elly Schlein, that of the Ministry of the Interior is “a choice which seems very political. It has never been seen and it is very serious”. “The Democratic Party – the secretary also declared in the evening from Brussels – is and will always be committed to the fight against the mafia and has nothing to do with the serious act committed yesterday by Minister Piantedosi.”
No official comment, however, from the M5, where certain authoritative representatives nevertheless express “strong concern about what has happened in recent days and weeks due to the series of arrests that occurred in February” . Having recalled that legality is “a founding value of our political action and as a prerequisite to the construction of any political project”, the M5s however invites the majority parties not to “use this affair in an instrumental manner and make it a cudgel of political attack”. From the center-right, reasons the head of the M5, “we do not accept lessons in ethics and legality”.
The center-right, however, defends the choice of the minister. Forza Italia invites Decaro to “appreciate” the commission’s intervention “if he has nothing to fear”. While Undersecretary of Justice Delmastro describes Decaro’s comments as “disconcerting”.
To the applause of those present in the City Hall room, who interrupted him several times, he announced that “if there is even a single suspicion of criminal infiltration in the Commune, I will give up the escort.” Decaro, who is also president of Anci, has lived for nine years with the constant presence of two agents after the death threats he received for his fights for legality, which led to several arrests, including some members of mafia clans. “I'm afraid for myself and for my family – he stressed – but I look the mafia in the face and I fight it.” A commitment that the mayor wrote in black and white in a package of “thousands of pages delivered two days ago to the prefecture: even after 24 hours, I did not receive the telephone call from the minister informing me of the arrival of the commission. I don't believe they didn't even read them,” he said.
In Bari, two and a half years ago, another municipal councilor was arrested for alleged exchange of votes, still for the 2019 elections, in this case in Bari and in the neighboring municipality of Valenzano: this is Francesca Ferrialso elected to the center-right (Di Rella list as mayor).
