Puglia is in fourth place in the Italian ranking of threatened local administrators

Puglia with 32 cases (-33% compared to 2022) is in fourth place among the Italian regions most affected by the phenomenon of ‘administrators under fire’. These are the numbers that emerge from the latest report drawn up by the association ‘Public Notice-Local Authorities and Regions against mafias and corruption’ which has been recording acts of intimidation, threats and violence against local administrators and public administration staff for fourteen years. carried out in Italy.

Data for the period 2010-2023: 653 acts of intimidation in Puglia

In Puglia, in particular, the alarming figure emerges for Foggia (9 cases) which is the fourth most affected province in 2023, behind Cosenza (30), Naples (21) and Palermo (12). Furthermore, the analysis of data for the period 2010-2023 sees the region in fourth place in the Italian ranking with 653 acts of intimidation, behind Sicily, Calabria and Campania. In the sum of the numbers covering the last 13 years, Foggia and Lecce are in eighth and ninth place among the most affected provinces, with 155 and 147 cases respectively.

Due to its 148 municipalities affected (58% of the total present in the regional territory, the highest percentage at a national level) Puglia is the fifth region with the highest number of local authorities affected by acts of intimidation at a national level. Lecce (48) is the province with the highest number of local authorities involved, in sixth place in the national ranking.

The episodes concentrated in the Centre-South

The overall Italian data records 315 episodes of administrators being harassed in 2023, one case every 28 hours. “The data quantitatively confirm an unacceptable phenomenon, which in some places in Italy is so pervasive as to become almost an ‘ordinary’ way of relating with the institutions. Concrete acts such as physical violence, fires and bomb attacks, not just threatening letters, insults, fake news and insults on social media, are concentrated above all in the Centre-South – declares the president of Public Notice, Roberto Montà – A condition that becomes chronic, in particular where the criminal presence is stronger and where there are dissolutions of Municipalities, demonstrating a dangerous connection that must be the subject of attention by the legislator in view of a possible revision of the law“.

“Every year the publication of the Public Notice ‘Administrators under fire’ report highlights the dangerous role of local administrators in Italy – declares the Regional Coordinator of Public Notice, Pierpaolo D’Arienzo, Mayor of the Municipality of Monte Sant’Angelo – In addition to the quantitative data, the report continues to be a necessary tool that highlights the violent presence of mafia organizations that influence the activities of public administrations and the numerous other forms of intimidation which, even after the pandemic, are marking a new dimension and perception of administrators premises by citizens“.

“To be threatened – continues d’Arienzo – in addition to local administrators, there are also those who are running for public office, a phenomenon recorded in all reports and which requires significant additional attention in view of the next electoral round in June, when 47% of Italian municipalities will vote. A worrying picture, which concerns in particular the medium-small municipalities, in which the loneliness, the absence of media attention is stronger, and where the ‘dark figure’ of silence often lurks, and which describes territorial, economic and societies in which being mayor and administrator becomes an increasingly dangerous activity“.