The words spoken by the mayor of Marsala, Massimo Grillo, on Wednesday afternoon, are eloquent of what these three years of Administration have been.
A disavowal of his own choices, he was keen to underline that only now that the bar is high, with the new additions, can he think about mending the relationship with the citizens (who prevented him from doing so before?) and he can think about actually being mayor.
It is serious in relation to those who have already held the role of councilor. The members of the Council, we remember, are not elected but chosen one by one by the mayor, perhaps proposed by the parties but always with the endorsement of the First Citizen.
However, the strongest ambiguities concern the parties, or rather the Forza Italia party which speaks with many voices and which created the regional case in Marsala.
There is a provincial coordinator, Toni Scilla, elected last January 28th with a public party meeting, in the presence of the regional coordinator, Marcello Caruso, therefore also in the presence of national representatives.
No one can doubt Scilla’s election, the cards speak clearly, discrediting that election means not even understanding the party mechanisms and the presences that they put the stamp on that political line.
What then happens is that in Marsala it is understood that there may be opportunities within the blue party and so a group is formed, it is signed up, some of these are city councilors, and an attempt is also made to create a council group. Three councilors are placed on the council: Ivan Gerardi (at his umpteenth party change), Salvatore Agate, Donatella Ingardia at her first political launch.
Pushing for these positions is the prime minister Enzo Sturiano, with the cover of Stefano Pellegrino, without ever passing through the provincial coordination. As if party bodies didn’t matter. It seems like déjà vu: Sturiano requesting to join the Democratic Party with his group, then the Paolo Ruggirello area, and not being accepted.
Party life is made up of rules, which you may not like but you have to stick to them and when you arrive you don’t always sit in the front row, the times when there were minds like Winston Churchill are long gone.
The clash has taken place, there is a rift that will now have to be mended, perhaps in Palermo. Maybe after the European Championships.
For the Honorable Stefano Pellegrino, joining the council means helping the city, but a deputy does this whether he is in the majority or in the opposition, this is how you do it when you are elected: you put yourself at the service of the province, of all of Sicily, independently by the color of the administrations.
In this confusion Forza Italia is not attractive, it is not attractive due to the continuous chatter that comes out, due to the clashes, due to the dissonances.
And while they argue, serving up an unseemly and low-level spectacle, they don’t even touch upon key topics for the life of the city: health, environment, safety, taxes and management of services, assistance and protection of the weakest social groups.
A dialectical squint and a behavioral divergence from which the profound disconnect between politics and public opinion arises.
People distance themselves from politics because politics is distant from the people. They mind their own business, with muscular exercises that seem like jokes.
As long as politics chases these goals and uses a language foreign to everyday life, triggering a repudiation towards the current political class, all these protagonists will not attract anyone.
The voter, the citizen, even the most inattentive one, feels betrayed by the infinity of changes of position, the last regional elections have marked a clear line: the mayor Grillo, and his administration, supported Sturiano, candidate in the MPA. An electoral support which then highlighted the distance between the other candidates in the area, Stefano Pellegrino, Eleonora Lo Curto, Mimmo Turano. We still remember the invectives of the current councilor Gerardi against Pellegrino in support of his friend Sturiano. Today everything is over, friends, tarallucci and wine. It’s not about holding a grudge, it’s about knowing how to do politics and also being able to communicate it, above all managing to attract citizens.
All these squabbles, the constant uncertainty, make us understand only one thing: their aim is to safeguard their interests.
