The clash heats up in view of the run-off for the seat of mayor of the Municipality of Avellino.
Ottavio Lucarelli, president of the Order of Journalists of Campania, has given up on moderating the debate between the two candidates for mayor of Avellino who will compete in the run-off on 24 June. The two aspiring mayors are Laura Nargiformer deputy mayor of the previous Festa administration, whose mayor was involved in a serious legal case and the centre-left candidate for mayor, Antonio Gengaro. The two passed the first round separated by a few percentage points and the level of political conflict in Avellino is high.
Lucarelli, for decades a political reporter for Repubblica Napoli and for many years a point of reference for journalists in Campania, explained his refusal with a short note: «Regarding the lack of discussion between the candidates in the Avellino ballot, the request to have it moderated by the president of the Order presupposed total trust in freedom of information. Instead, I received a request from the Nargi committee to send them a certified e-mail in which I would have to guarantee a series of limitations to the right to freedom of the press and at that point I declined the invitation.”
So what happened? A request would have arrived from the candidate Nargi via certified email to completely exclude questions on the judicial matter which then led to the fall of the municipal council in mid-April. The candidate, however, defends herself, accusing her competitor: «To state, as Gengaro does, that we wanted to choose the questions for the discussion is serious and offensive, and belongs to her vulgar language, as usual disrespectful of a civil democratic dialectic. But that’s how it is.”
