«Transforming from left-handed to right-handed without becoming right-handed and not remaining left-handed», wrote Giosuè Carducci almost 140 years ago. In 1883, transformism had just been born with Agostino Depretis, eight times prime minister who built his fortunes and his governments by co-opting parliamentarians from across the political spectrum.
From Depretis to what is happening in Bari these days, the step, unfortunately, is short and seems to continue in the wake of a “tradition” only slightly shaken by the investigations and the rattling of handcuffs.
Of course not everything is “criminally relevant” but we always talk about the problem of turncoats, which wouldn’t exist if there weren’t the parties that catch them. Because otherwise they wouldn’t turn the gabbana around. And instead there are parties that are entirely founded by turncoats. Sometimes there are entire municipal and regional administrations hanging on for changes of shirt.
“Opposition or majority don’t matter a damn,” said on the phone an interlocutor of Giacomo Olivieri, now in prison accused of having set up an electoral machine that gained support by buying it from the underworld. Olivieri, and not only him, zigzagged between right and left. But then the judicial investigation became a problem for the center-left parties in Bari and Puglia because it called into question a practice that had been in vogue for years.
And if anyone was under the illusion of a new step in the upcoming municipal elections in the Apulian capital, they were mistaken. Certainly the two “against, but friends/united” candidates of the centre-left, Laforgia and Leccese, have signed a “pact” in a clumsy attempt to moralize local politics. A “pact” which, as expected, already from the first names that appeared in the totolist list, seems to have the same value as the fife.
In short, the door closed to the clever politicians (Leccese should have said it) seems to have several holes.
For example, on the Con list, which has not yet dissolved its reservation between the two “against but friends/united”, there would be Romeo Ranieri. His political career was built on jumps over guardrails: born in the centre-right, then moving to the slightly less right centre-right of Alfano (NCD), to the «South to the Centre» movement of Anita Maurodinoia (now under investigation) and of her husband Sandrino Cataldo (under house arrest). Finally on the list with yet another civic. With him there would be a new entry: the lawyer Letizia Bucaria, a list of legal consultants to public companies and partner of Fabrizio D’Addario, powerful sole director of Sanitaservice, the “in house providing” company of the Bari Local Health Authority which manages various activities : from the concierge, to the cleaning and sanitization of the premises, from the transport of patients to the transport of vaccines and blood components, from the management of the CUP to the maintenance of the healthcare facilities. Well, in this case nothing illegitimate, but perhaps with the current situation a question of opportunity arises.
Returning to transformism, Decaro had made a belated self-criticism: “It’s the real problem.” But looking at the judicial papers, the investigations confirm how electorally useful it is to bring on board vote bearers, even in situations where oblique and criminal interests are not involved.
Winston Churchill said: «Italians are bizarre people. One day 45 million fascists. The following day 45 million anti-fascists and partisans. Yet these 90 million Italians do not appear in the censuses…”.
Instead, it turns out that in «Noi Popolari», another civic body connected to the center-left (apparently with Leccese), there should be Giuseppe Loiacono, former councilor for public works of the only center-right mayor of the last fifty years, Simone Di Cagno Abbrescia. And with him, the outgoing Pasquale Magrone, formerly parliamentary assistant to Biagio Tatò, senator of AN. Not much, since even a councilor (and now re-nominated) of Decaro, Vito Lacoppola, began his career by being elected on the lists of the fictitious “Puglia first of all”, following the split of the An which later merged into Futuro e Libertà, into Ncd , Olivieri’s Realtà Italia, to finally arrive at a mayor’s house. And of course we are only at the beginning of the toto-names.
Then there are the double standards that make you think. Thus the People’s Lawyer and former prime minister and leader of the 5 Stars, Giuseppe Conte, places a diktat on Emiliano by pointing the finger at the civic leaders, but “overlooks” the same people who allowed “his” Aida Maria Episcopo to be elected mayor in Foggia in the first round. Without those votes she was in the runoff and who knows how it would end.
Round and round, in short, the only words that come to mind are always those of Rino Formica on “blood and shit politics”. All things considered, these are the words of a moderate.
