Every day, directly from Puglia, new news arrives which further confuses the already tangled mess created by the local PD. The trusted men fall, the majority in the Regional Council falls apart, the investigators continue to give bad news to the dems, the fire within the broad fire intensifies and Emiliano remains there, sitting on the highest seat in Puglia reserved for the governor, in the hope that time is not a gentleman and throws everything into oblivion. This hope is all too vain: things for the entire Apulian dem system are far too compromised to hope for a sort of rebirth. In fact, causing one of the last remaining forts still in the hands of the reds to shake.
Emiliano tries: the new delegation to ingratiate himself with the grillini
Only yesterday, in fact, the regional health councilor Rocco Palese handed in his resignation: “Considering the current political situation I thought it appropriate to formalize my resignation as councillor”, he announced. In addition to him, it appears that Emiliano also asked Anna Grazia Maraschio, Councilor for the Environment, to step aside for “exclusively political” reasons. And after their replacement, Emiliano placed theyet another attempt to save itself by inserting a new delegation: that of Legality. A choice that came thanks to pressure from Giuseppe Conte who, from the self-declared “party of honesty” which collaborates with the PD systems, had requested it. Among the names eligible for the new role, Emiliano searches among the family members of mafia victims. Opportunism? Of course: but faced with the continuous new investigations that stain the image of the local PD, a simple delegation will not be enough to get clean. Rather, it could be useful if nothing else to keep alive the alliance with the Grillini, which is fundamental for maintaining the regional majority. The numbers are now very unstable and the centre-right opposition would be ready to ask for a no-confidence vote, which the Five Star Movement has already announced that it will not support. But, at the same time, claiming to be outside “the perimeter of the majority”.
Trani, places in municipal offices in exchange for the vote
A few hours after these events and the latest investigation concerning Alfonso Pisicchio, the loyalist warned by the governor beforehand of the imminent arrest thanks to an alleged leak of information from “Roman sources”, a new fact shocks the PD. The attention of the investigators has in fact also focused on Trani, another dem stronghold which is now trembling. At the center of the latest scandal is the “South to Center” list, the movement of Sandro Cataldo, already under arrest for the system of buying and selling votes in favor of his wife Anita Maurodinoia, another regional councilor who has resigned. Now, a system completely similar to that of Triggiano: in Trani, in fact, the investigations speak of jobs in exchange for votes. Starting from the members of the list themselves, who would have benefited, after the elections, from contracts in municipal companies. Indeed, it seems that it has reached the point of threats towards those who report, as told to Truth by Franco Nugnes, an activist who made important revelations about the case and who appears to have been asked to withdraw his testimony.
A papier-mâché giant
In short, the picture is not the best. Between arrests, possible investigations and who knows how much news that still remains buried, the entire PD system in Puglia seems to collapse like a papier-mâché giant at the first breath of wind. The historic strongholds found themselves dismantled by investigations overnight. And to think that that demonstration organized in Bari on a normal Saturday afternoon in March by the governor was supposed to serve to make the figure of Antonio Decaro, mayor of Bari and Emiliano’s loyalist, again candid, after the news of the investigations by the Interior Ministry into the Municipality and of a his possible commissionership. That “I entrust it to you”, pronounced sympathetically by Emiliano from the stage and welcomed by the laughter of those present, it was the beginning of the end: from that moment on, the Democrats, who could count on the secure support of the historic fiefdom, were left with only a handful of flies on their hands. And, apparently, the trouble has just begun: we are waiting for the judiciary, which will take its course.
