«We rebuilt Avellino after the bombings and after the earthquake, we will also rebuild it after Festa. Tile by tile, I walk on foot and go slowly. Together we will go very far.”
It’s a river in flood Antonio Gengaro during the closing of the electoral campaign in Piazzetta Agnes. Before him Vittorio Boccieri (Avellino Futura Project), to follow Modestino Iandoli (FdI). Dr. instead chose the Villa Comunale Aldo D’Andrea (Popular unit for Avellino).
With about thirty minutes late on the timetable, a few hours before the electoral silence, the Avellino centre-left rallies around its candidate. With The Great Pretender of Queen here is Gengaro on stage – «as a boy I went crazy for the Platters’ version», he confesses – together with the leaders of the coalition, Enza Ambrsone for the Democratic Party, Ferdinando Picariello for the M5s, Francesco Iandolo of Avellino Progetto Partecipato, Amalio Santoro at head of Per Avellino Con Gengaro.
The little square fills up slowly, the festive procession of App arrives from the main street with banners and flags starting from the Casino del Principe, a symbolic place of youth participation betrayed in recent years.
We start with a minute of reflection, in the morning the mother of the Honorable Giancarlo Giordano passed away, «one of the architects of this coalition, who spent the most on the relaunch of the united center-left. The embrace of all of us goes to him and his family » says Gengaro.
«We don’t promise to make Avellino become Stockholm or Barcelona – begins Ambrosone – but we are here to enhance our excellences, Cnr, Conservatory, Agriculture. They accused Tonino of not smiling, he recalls, which is difficult after the recent death of his father and considering the many problems that the city must solve. We will shoulder the responsibilities as we have always done, speaking to the assignees of public housing without favoritism but in compliance with the rules and transparency. We do not promise the Moon, but to govern this disappointed city which after the holidays has not seen any promises kept. We are real people, without greasepaint, without make-up.”
Danilo Dolci quotes former App group leader Francesco Iandolo. «”Everyone grows only if dreamed”, so we want a better Avellino, as we have dreamed of it since we started politics. Let’s continue our journey on the path of awareness, without tricks. We are not the ones who changed the Ateco code the day before the presentation of the lists – he attacks with clear reference to Ferragosto 2023 -. Ours is a proposal to listen to the community, the opposite of what Laura Nargi did who with her administration closed the door in the face of young people, of those who asked for new clinics and not just to renovate the existing ones. App, he reminds us, is the list with the highest presence of women, we will be able to support and help them. If the prosecutor’s office hadn’t intervened, Nargi calls into question, would her feminist battle for a mayor have really made sense? We are with the kids who study and hope for a job, not with those who give in to rigged competitions » she adds.
For Ferdinando Picariello, against the wide field there are those who play politics by proxy: «Nargi is on the field in the name of Festa, to defend 5 years of empty words. Genovese works for three gentlemen who ran away from home, D’Agostino and Petitto from the Festa majority, the latter also from his party, in the name of the most vulgar transformationism, the last is a gentleman who even ran away from his city (the Hon. Rotondi ed.). With us the best political history of the city, with them friends of friends.”
But it is Santoro who increasingly pushes his hand against the outgoing number two of Palazzo di città: «We have 5 devastating years behind us, a huge alcoholic bubble that has not yet evaporated. But the problems are all there. We will improve this corrupt and corrupting system – it sinks – on one side there is the right that destroys the south, between transformers and the building, on the other the deputy jailbird, silent servant of all the atrocities of this Council. We need Tonino as mayor to restore honor and responsibility to the city.”
It’s Gengaro’s turn, in his shirtsleeves he starts off diesel but immediately roars against his competitors. «I like Genovese, but he is like that boy who arrives at the exams without having studied. He talks about the suburbs as if they were the Bronx, when all he needs is redevelopment. He speaks as if he landed today, but with him there are those who have governed for twenty years. D’Agostino will be able to talk to us in the sunlight on the stadium, with his hands on the table. Certainly not as a piece of the majority in conflict of interest. The stadium is needed, the huge shopping center they have imagined around it is not needed. We are the first fans of Avellino, but we will never take selfies at the matches » he reiterates.
The attack on Nargi and the world she represents is furious: «They attacked me for a joke about “Alice in Wonderland”, but for five years she didn’t see, didn’t hear, didn’t speak. The people of Avellino will see, they will hear, they will speak with the vote because they don’t have a nose ring. I’m not afraid of those who didn’t publish the resolutions, or of those who went home and took the municipality’s computer with them. Behind every contract there are “your business”. We rebuilt Avellino after the bombings and after the earthquake, we will rebuild it after Festa too.” The aftershocks of this calamity according to Gengaro: a recovery plan that future generations will pay for, public money used for propaganda, social services at a standstill, property developers with both feet in the urban planning office. «Enough of all this, entrepreneurs must be part of the city’s relaunch, with participatory urban planning. On the Autism Centre, we will give it to the ASL on free loan for use. And the city must put its face to the disputes in the province. We must stand by the workers of IIA.”
The charge follows the wave of applause, Gengaro, more hoarse than ever, calms down and ends where he started, from the primacy of politics. «They called me radical chic, but with me there is the noble heart of my people. I am Avellino to the core and I repeat it. Street by street, tile by tile – to popular acclaim he shouts the claim he wanted so much – without being afraid of anyone. I am here, he says, to demand compensation in the memory of Tonino Di Nunno, my mayor, who was not treated well by politicians. First of all I say this to my party – MP Toni Ricciardi is injured and confined to a wheelchair, and the entire Dem general staff -. This is what Gengaro said to him: «I thank Maurizio Petracca for the Ferrari and Ettore Iacovacci for the petrol, he jokes, with a small infraction if we stick together we can all stay together. But I prefer to go slowly, on foot, to go further. I will be with you until the end!” and off we go Popular song.
