“Those who don’t vote hurt themselves first and then everyone else.” Appeal from the Asti Oltre cultural association – Lavocediasti.it

Elections will be held on Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th June European, for the Piedmont Region and, in 86 Asti municipalities, administrative.

The cultural association Asti Oltrethrough a Facebook post, invites all Asti residents to exercise their right to vote.

After a bad election campaign, we finally vote on Saturday afternoon and Sunday.

Voting is taking place in twenty-six European countries for the renewal of the European Parliament. In Italy, some regional councils and presidents and many mayors and municipal councils are also being renewed.

As a cultural association we wish to express our point of view and launch an appeal.

First of all, ours is an invitation to go and vote.

Let’s all go and vote, especially the younger generations.

Voting is a right but also, or even before that, a duty. Giving up the vote means giving up one’s right but above all weakening the democratic institutions born from the Resistance. The vote was a recent achievement for women that cannot be renounced. Those who don’t vote hurt themselves first and then everyone else.

So first of all go and vote even if you are disappointed, even if there isn’t the ideal party. First vote: only in this way is the sacrosanct right to criticize or share expressed. Second: vote according to conscience and awareness, freely and critically evaluating the messages of the actors in the field.

This applies to elections at every level.

In particular for the European elections, we also allow ourselves to appeal to a conscious vote for those forces that believe in Europe and in the strengthening of the Union’s institutions, in a moment of dramatic difficulties. We ask for a vote for those who believe in Europe because we need a strong and united Europe that knows how to count more in a world looking for new balances, unfortunately through weapons and threats of military escalation.

But in Piedmont you also vote for President and Regional Council. We would like an informed vote for those who believe in a stronger social commitment starting from public health, in dramatic conditions and from a vision of more balanced development through greater planning of infrastructural interventions that help the areas most penalized by the industrial crisis, such as ‘Asti area, to find a true path to new social and economic development.

Finally the Municipalities. Over 80 of the 117 in the Province of Asti renew their Mayors and Councils. There are many particular situations that we don’t think we’ll enter.

But indications emerge from the nomination map that should not be overlooked. In too many micro municipalities we find only one list, sometimes closed with difficulty or with names that have been repeated for decades. If on the one hand it is necessary to express applause to those who renew their commitment, on the other hand it is necessary to open a reflection on the future. But there is a worrying fact. There is only one list of candidates even in municipalities such as San Damiano (over 8000 inhabitants), Castagnole Lanze, Cocconato and other important towns. It is a worrying fact that denotes disaffection and lack of democratic dialectics in a Province in crisis, in which the accumulation of offices in very few people, between politics and finance, is taking on pathological aspects that we have been denouncing for some time without it being possible to open a serious discussion on the ideas.

Going to vote is fundamental, regardless of one’s ideas. But it is equally important to start discussing seriously and democratically again.

In the meantime, let’s start voting.