May 7, 1995: Alfonso Andria is the new president of the Province of Salerno

OfGabriele Bojano

With 253,724 preferences equal to 51.2% of valid votes he beats Carlo Chirico, candidate of the centre-right. He will also remain in office for another mandate, until 2004, aiming to relaunch the area in terms of tourism

With 253,724 preferences equal to 51.2% of the valid votes, the centre-left candidate Alfonso Andria surpasses the centre-right candidate in the run-off round, Carlo Chiricoand becomes president of the Province of Salerno succeeding to Ettore Liguori (Popular Party). In the first round it stopped at 41.2%. Andria is a very well-known figure in Salerno circles (his father spent most of his career at the education board of Salerno, then he was the superintendent in Trapani and then in Ascoli Piceno. His mother is a teacher of literary subjects). He has been active on the Salerno political scene since the 1980s and even before that on the cultural and artistic scene talented actor and singer in local amateur companies.

In the ranks of Christian Democracy he was a municipal councilor in Salerno at the time of the mayor Michael Scotlandwith whom he collaborates in the organization of some cultural activities including the celebrations for the tenth anniversary of the death of Alfonso Gattothe Salerno publishing exhibition and a theatrical review on the terrace of the “Umberto I” orphanage. Appreciated for the balance of his ideas and the refined elegance with which he expresses them, he is director of the‘Provincial Tourism Board of Salerno where it operates in the sector of events and the promotion of the tourist image in Italy and abroad, taking care of the organization of national and international events.

As president of the Province he served for two terms, until June 12, 2004also being part of the Bureau of theUnion of the Provinces of Italy (Upi) and is particularly dedicated to the valorisation and relaunch of the territory in terms of tourism, putting the experience gained in the sector at the service of the community. He strongly believes in the action of stimulation and connection between institutions, social partners, subjects from the productive world and professions and precisely the affirmation of institutional centrality of the Provincial Authority, supported and consolidated by him, clashes with the claims of solitary leadership of the mayor of Salerno, Vincenzo De Luca. There war of nerves between the two, always implicit and never open and brazen, explodes in all its virulence when Andria accepts in 2006 candidacy for mayor for that portion of the center-left that does not recognize itself in De Luca’s reconfirmation. But the polls once again prove the outgoing mayor in favor.

As president of the Andria Province he was among the promoters in 1997 of the candidacy of the Amalfi Coast to UNESCO world heritage site and in the same year he contributed to creating an event that over time would become a real flagship of international prestige, the Mediterranean Archaeological Tourism Exchange. After leaving Palazzo Sant’Agostino, Alfonso Andria is elected MEP and senator. In August 2022 he leaves Democratic partywhich he had joined after being part of the Margherita, returning the card to the provincial secretary of Salerno Enzo Luciano and denouncing in a letter the Democratic Party of being “bent back to employer logic”.

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