The data – although reconstructed with open sources by La Stampa – are bitter. They recall dark years that seemed erased by time and go far beyond the two best-known cases of Bari and Turin. From Messina to Pozzuoli, from Avellino to Palermo, from Catania to Cagliari up to Manfredonia and Reggio Calabria in the first 100 days of 2024 there are 54 administrators, politicians and municipal and regional officials involved in investigations into malfeasance in public administration: corruption, disruption of auction, mafia political exchange vote, electoral crimes. Dozens of entrepreneurs or managers (47) at the head of joint venture or private companies ended up in trouble.
And so in Bari, investigating the regional elections (involving the former councilor of the Emiliano council Anita Maurodinoia and her husband Sandro Cataldo), but also the administrative elections in Grumo Appula of 20 and 21 September 2020 and of 3 and 4 October 2021 in Triggiano ( mayor and deputy mayor under investigation), the prosecutors hypothesized a criminal association that promised jobs in exchange for votes. The tenor of the bargaining is this: «The lady came again and said: I have all my son’s friends to vote, I’ll have my son come for the list representative, but I want the gas cylinder».
The Ras of tiles
In Turin, Mr. Francesco Anello will call the Democratic Party leader Salvatore Gallo, considered a member of the Ras (and under investigation for electoral corruption on this point) to «obtain his interest in order to allow him to undergo surgery quickly». Because – Anello will say when intercepted – “They won’t give me any terms to this bastard from Cottolengo”. Gallo will work hard but will clarify immediately. “This will cost you 50 votes and I’m not joking because this time I have to win and you can make phone calls even if you’re in a wheelchair.”
In Avellino, two weeks ago, the resigning mayor Gianluca Festa was arrested. He is accused of alleged “illicit solicitations” towards entrepreneurs, linked by contractual relationships with the Municipality, to sponsor initiatives organized by private individuals in the city, such as Eurochocolate: in this way there would have been “positive repercussions on the image of the mayor in the period immediately prior to the electoral consultations”. Elections in which Festa (expelled from the Democratic Party in 2021) was preparing to run again, with a civic list of centre-right inspiration. The alleged corruption would also have to do with a sponsorship, obtained in exchange for “favors” for the owner of a point of sale of a well-known restaurant chain, who is also under investigation. Festa’s deputy, Laura Nargi, who was supposed to govern the Municipality pro tempore, also ended up on the radar of the prosecutor’s office.
Procurement with makeup
And then there is Pozzuoli who talks about an investigation into alleged influence trafficking. “The race is all useless, because when he decides who should win, he does so,” said Antonio Carrabba, employee of the “Musella” business group in a conversation on 20 October 2021, alluding to a politician called “Kojak”. According to the prosecutors, he was referring to the then Democratic Party mayor of the town Vincenzo Figliolia who ended up in the investigation into the alleged attempts to pilot the tender for the redevelopment of the Rione Terra and its transformation into a “widespread hotel” with accommodation and commercial facilities. Also involved in the same investigation are Nicola Oddati, member of the National Directorate of the Democratic Party at the time of the events, and Seby Romeo, former provincial secretary of the Dem in Reggio Calabria.
There is still Trapani where the regional Democratic Party deputy (and former councilor) Dario Safina is said to have piloted, at the time of his role in the council, a “project financing” tender for the maintenance of public lighting, informing an entrepreneur from Messina in advance of the timing of publication, contents and the basic amount of the tender, thus allowing the company to obtain the award of the procedure by submitting a better offer than those of its competitors. In exchange – again for the prosecutors – “Gifts” which, according to the prosecutors, would have been requested by Safina to “achieve the personal advantage of increasing her visibility and therefore personal consensus among the electoral body thereby, consequently increasing her own prominence politic”.
Finally, two investigations in Catania and one in Palermo. In the first, the vice president of the Sicilian regional parliament Luca Sammartino ended up in trouble. Today in the League, but with a past in the UDC, Pd and Italy of Values, he is accused – during his militancy in the Dem – of having favored the owner of a pharmacy in Tremestieri Etneo. As? He would have worked to prevent one of his competitors from opening. In return he would have obtained electoral support for the candidate for the European elections that he supported in 2020 for the Democratic Party, Caterina Chinnici (totally unrelated to the investigation). The other in Paternò where the mayor, Antonino Naso, elected with civic lists in June 2022, a former city councilor and former councilor, Pietro Cirino, and a councilor of the current council, Salvatore Comis, ended up under the spotlight of the prosecutors , in the Carabinieri’s «Athena» investigation. In Palermo, on 9 April Mimmo Russo, a strong name in the Palermo centre-right, Ras of social cooperatives, member (and after his arrest expelled) of FdI, with a parenthesis in the centre-left in the majority of former mayor Leoluca Orlando, ended up in trouble. The accusation is serious: «Having been constantly at the disposal of Cosa Nostra». Some justice collaborators, supported by wiretaps, say that since 2007 he has made “electoral alliances with top mafiosi”. And during the last, unfortunate, 2022 election campaign (he was not elected) he allegedly offered jobs, sums of money, food and petrol vouchers in exchange for votes.
Verdini and the others
In the background are the investigations into high-sounding names: from the one which involved Denis Verdini and his son involved in an investigation by the Rome prosecutor’s office into the consultancy network and the very rich cake of public tenders announced by Anas, to the one into the former president of Sardinia Region Christian Solinas (investigated for corruption together with an entrepreneur and the former regional councilor Nanni Lancioni.
And although it must be remembered that all these investigations are in a guarantee phase, an alarm is raised from Libera, an association founded by Luigi Ciotti: «After the years of “clean hands”, corruption in Italy continues to manifest itself in systemic forms, with dynamic diffusive and self-regulating mechanisms: a true “national pathology”, which fuels widespread distrust in democratic institutions, disengagement, abstentionism. Given the worsening of these serious critical issues, we are witnessing a progressive loosening of the inhibitory brakes.” More precisely: «We are preparing to repeal the abuse of office and to weaken the trafficking of illicit influences, measures desired by the Keeper of the Seals Nordio; the controls of Anac and the Court of Auditors are weakened; contracts are “liberalised”, awarded in almost all cases without tender or competition thanks to the “Salvini Code”.
