Caltanissetta is approaching the day of the second votes. The ballot between Annalisa Petitto and Walter Tesauro divides the city, waiting to elect her leader, ready to enter the Palazzo del Carmine.
The outgoing mayor Roberto Gambino, through a Facebook post, offers citizens his reflections.
The text of the post is reported in full:
“STOP BOWLS
With bowls still, I want to write my personal reflection on the current election round.
On Sunday 16 June, the two fundamental steps for approaching the run-off round were completed, designation of councilors (Saturday) and appointments (Sunday) and we are approaching next weekend with the run-off vote.
With the bowls still in place, I want to make a political reflection with you on the local elections which will end in seven days.
Allow me to thank, once again, all the citizens who believed in me and who judged positively the five years in which, with my very capable group of professionals far from the parties, present both in the council and in the city council, we have governed our city in an honest and transparent manner, solely and exclusively in the interest of the community and to protect the common good.
Now let’s delve into the run-off round together, which pits two apparently well-defined political sides against each other, the first made up of centre-right parties and the other made up of a fake civility that no one has ever believed in.
Some leaders of the Democratic Party recently declared that they did not want to support my government proposal, because it was based on the continuity of the political action implemented in the last five years, in which the PD was in opposition.
Nothing could be further from the truth, councilor Petitto took office in the City Council thanks to a “scam” regional law, subsequently declared anti-constitutional, within a political formation outside the Democratic Party, which also renounced its symbol 5 years ago. Ergo the democratic party was not present in the city council in Caltanissetta in the five-year period 2019 – 2024, the tall tale told by the provincial secretary of the dems Renzo Bufalino, certainly directed by the former minister Provenzano, does not hold up.
The maneuver of fake civility exists only to free the Democratic Party from the obligation of broad agreements and to avoid supporting the mayor in office of the 5 Star movement, who has been the custodian of a first-level popular consensus, nothing more than a “exhausted horse”.
The political strategy of Councilor Petitto, former provincial president of the Democratic Party, is all too clear to everyone and the fake civility in which she has dressed has overwhelmed dozens of citizens unaware of the palace maneuvers in which they found themselves involved, which led to the itself on the ballot.
Years of attacks, insults, falsehoods, violence inside and outside the city council have led councilor Petitto to misrepresent reality, communicating untrue things to our fellow citizens in order to gain credit as a “champion” of the people. But the people are not “ox” as some believe, the people observe, reflect and in the end vote and the popular consensus together with the opinion vote all went to Mayor Gambino, the people are tired of dealing with self-styled ” paladins” or “paladins”, the people need the “people’s mayor”.
But unfortunately this will not be possible, it is not enough to have governed in an honest and transparent manner, it is not enough to have cleaned up the municipality, it is not enough to have freed oneself from cliques, committees, power groups and even parties, all of this is not enough. Now two political entities different from the outgoing one are on the ballot.
I wanted to focus on the completed phase of the council’s designation and on the alignment. As far as the council is concerned, the centre-right team remained consistent with what was declared in the first round by confirming all the designated councillors. While councilor Petitto’s team included Angelo Failla among others, making explicit an alliance that was clear to insiders from the first moment, it’s a shame that the good Failla didn’t communicate anything to his team, especially to those who worked hard inside the list, also achieving important results. Many of them have been betrayed and among these there are people I know very well.
Let’s go to the comparison, from a technical point of view a comparison of my list “Mayor Gambino carry on like this” with the center right would have led to exceeding 50% of the votes and therefore to forming a majority in the city council whatever the final result was , earning the list in question another seat. I wanted to maintain the consistency that I have maintained for five years. Like when I decided not to carry out the reshuffle and decisively rejected what the then undersecretary for infrastructure had devised, which then moved to Italy and has now become the “champion” of the Petitto cause which sees his brother finally enter politics with a seat in municipal council, won with 233 votes.
Mine is a coherence towards my voters and is a guarantee of the more than 8000 citizens who voted for me in the first round and who still today continue to hug me in the street in disbelief.
Many of you have told me that they don’t want to vote in the second round, that they don’t feel represented by either candidate, that they would gladly go to the seaside, that after having crossed out the two names they would write on the ballot: Gambino. All this is useless, all this would allow the few who will go to vote to decide for all of us, I understand you and it is precisely for this reason that I am trying to reflect with you on how to behave and what to put in the ballot box next Sunday. I am sure that I will not vote for those who filled the city council sessions with falsehoods and insults against me expressed in an excessively violent manner. I will not vote for those who conducted an electoral campaign against it, in an empty and not at all proactive way, I will not vote for those who mocked you with a false civility that sees behind a very specific direction that only wants to conquer power as an end in itself, I will not vote for candidate Petitto.
I ask you to go and vote, to vote freely and coherently, trying to understand who can be worthy of your trust and above all I ask you to go and vote for our beloved city.
Good mark
Your mayor Roberto Gambino
Go ahead Caltanissetta!”
