Sent to Alcamo (Trapani). Everything changes by Mercedes Sosa begins to spread from the speakers when Totò Cuffaro arrives aboard a white Jeep. He’s not even completely out of the car when he offers his jaw to the first one vasata, his iconic double kiss on the cheeks: in a few minutes he will administer dozens of them. We are not in Palermo or even in his Raffadali, but in Alcamo, in the province of Trapani. To understand what is happening in Sicily, this is where you need to come, to a place that has never been a capital of cuffarism, where the 5 Stars have governed for years and where the center-right has never won an election. Yet there are many who flock to greet the former president, definitively sentenced to seven years in prison for aiding and abetting the mafia and revealing secrets. There are former city and regional councillors, while doing the honors is Giacomo Scala, who was mayor for ten years with the Democratic Party, then went with Matteo Renzi and is now with Cuffaro. Vasa Vasa he’s wearing a pink polo shirt, tucked into his jeans, and is in great shape again, like in the old days: he remembers everyone and has a word for everyone, an anecdote, two kisses. She refuses to answer only the Done: “I don’t talk to you, I say one thing and you write another”, he claims, when he is reminded of the promise made on 13 December 2015. That day, leaving Rebibbia prison, he assured: “Politics is a beautiful memory that will not be part of my new life.” Just over eight years have passed and Cuffaro has once again become the undisputed ras of politics in Sicily. How was this possible? “There is a void of leadershipno one has been able to fill it and now he is trying,” says Mariangela Di Gangi, city councilor in Palermo, a life spent behind Rita Borsellino.
The return of Cuffaro was gradual: after his release he volunteered in Burundi. Then, in October 2020, he almost silently launched his movement on social media: the Christian Democracy of Sicily. “Everyone said that starting a party was absurd and instead…”, says Silvio Cuffaro, the brother who is the mayor of Raffadali. At the beginning it seemed like just another attempt to relaunch the Scudocrociato, but Cuffaro’s DC immediately began to gain votes and elect councilors: first in the smaller towns, then in Palermo, then at the Regional Assembly, where in 2022 it was fundamental for Renato Schifani’s victory. “It’s clear that for the Cuffaro people it’s not what you say,” repeats his brother. “In Sicily, feelings are underestimated, the sentimental issue is very important in this land”, reflects Antonello Cracolici, exponent of the Democratic Party and president of the Regional Anti-Mafia Commission. “Beyond the person – he explains – there is a piece of the island that totally identifies with Cuffaro, with this idea that you can do everything and the opposite of everything”.
That piece of Sicily it seems to grow every day. Today Totò’s party has almost 400 administrators and continues to gather members. Many young people are experiencing their first political experience, such as Domenico Bonanno, former academic senator of the University of Palermo, elected group leader in the city council at the age of 32. “Why did I choose the DC? Because Totò told me: I want to be the coach of a team of young people, so that they don’t make the mistakes I made”, says he, who was twenty years old when Cuffaro went to prison. “I won’t go into the merits of his sentence – he explains – I can say, however, that leaders often almost put themselves in competition with young people. But not him, he gives us advice, helps us, but then we always have carte blanche.” “If Cuffaro can enjoy the rights guaranteed by the Constitution, he must be able to exercise them. But the fact that this policy continues to fascinate parts of the youth world must give us food for thought,” says Francesco Forgione, former president of the Anti-Mafia Commission and old adversary of the former governor. “The biggest mistake was to consider the issue only at a criminal level – he adds – And instead cuffarism, purified from judicial aspects, is a system of political and social relations, it is a philosophy and a practice of managing power that acts , for me in a distorted way, on the needs of the people”.
In Sicily, when we talk about power, we often have to look at healthcare. It was like this twenty years ago, when Vasa vasa he was governor, and it is still the case now, that the secretary of Cuffaro’s party is Stefano Cirillo: he is the former president of the Giglio foundation, which manages the Cefalù hospital, where many supported the DC. Today, the foundation, which collects agreements with public hospitals where the shortage of doctors is becoming chronic, is led by Giovanni Albano, brother of Nuccia, created by Cuffaro at the top of the regional family department. The first female medical examiner on the island, she conducted the autopsy of Giovanni Falcone and Libero Grassi. She is the daughter of Domenico Albano, considered the boss of Borgetto, one of the protectors of the bandit Salvatore Giuliano. “I don’t deny my father’s story, I was a child and I only learned about these facts when I grew up,” she told Reports, which revealed the cumbersome family bond that practically everyone on the island missed. Hot controversies had broken out, with the opposition demanding the councilor’s immediate step back. In Sicily, however, there is an ancient adage, which still represents the most effective political line today: get down juncu ca pass the slope. It means that when there is strong wind the reed must bend, otherwise it risks breaking: when the flood has passed, it will be able to straighten itself again. Cuffaro evidently knows that proverb very well: the former president armored his councilor and after some time the requests for resignation evaporated. Nuccia Albano was also at the Alcamo event, together with Saverio Romano, one of Cuffaro’s first dolphins, now his ally at the European Championships.
After weeks of rumors about the alliance with Renzi, in fact, in the end Totò had to settle for supporting the candidate expressed by Noi Moderati in the Forza Italia lists: his name is Massimo Dell’Utri, but he has no relation to the better-known Marcello. If he is elected, the credit will obviously go to Cuffaro, who with his DC claims to be able to move as many as 250 thousand votes. “I have made many mistakes, for which I have paid the right price that justice has decided to make me pay, but for this very reason I don’t think we have to give up our reasons”, says the former governor to his supporters in the Trapani area. The 90 seats in the room fill up immediately and in the end dozens of people have to settle for listening to Totò’s speech from the speakers. “We moderates – he claims at a certain point – will defend the right of other people to speak badly of us, but we will not be intimidated”. People applaud, some venture: “This was the last real president we had, sooner or later acchiana again”. In Sicilian nab it means to be elected and the meaning is that there are those who dream of the return of Vasa Vasa at the Palace of Orleans. A desire that has turned into fear in the ranks of the center-right, where Cuffaro’s presence is already perceived as too cumbersome. It happened in Bagheria, for example, the city where the former governor secretly met Michele Aiello, the healthcare entrepreneur who was later convicted because he was Bernardo Provenzano’s frontman. Here Totò split his coalition, paving the way for the re-election of the outgoing mayor Filippo Tripoli, former child prodigy of the UDC. What would happen if Cuffaro really decided to run again for leadership of the Region? The person concerned has received rehabilitation, regaining the right to vote and run for office, but he continues to deny wanting to run personally. Those closest to him do the same thing. “Before he put politics first, but after everything that happened the priorities changed. And then he became a grandfather,” assures his brother Silvio. In any case, the next Regionals are still three years away: anything can happen. Mercedes Sosa’s song also says it, the one that Totò chose to open his rallies: everything changes. Except that sometimes, in Sicily, when everything changes it’s just to leave everything as it is.
