BARI – Vito Leccese, 62 years old and head of cabinet for 20 years before Michele Emiliano and then Antonio Decaro at the Municipality, is the new mayor of Bari. For two decades he has worked in the shadows, now it will be his turn to directly administer the city. Graduated in Political Sciences, his political career began very early, when at just 23 years old, in 1985, he ran on the Green list, being elected city councilor.
He acts as spokesperson for environmentalist and pacifist demands, fights for the historic villas of Bari and, in the meantime, also becomes president of Legambiente Bari.
He was involved in the victorious referendum campaign against nuclear power and then became a councilor with Enrico Dalfino as mayor. Leccese knows the administrative machine not only from having directed it as head of the Cabinet, but also from his years as a municipal councilor until 1995. In between, in 1992 he was also elected deputy from the Green list in the Bari-Foggia constituency with over 5 thousand preferences for just 29 years old. After the dissolution of Parliament, he ran again but was defeated by Pinuccio Tatarella.
His political experience, however, continued as a regional and municipal councilor between 1995 and 1996, before returning to Parliament in 1996 among the ranks of the Ulivo. From 1999 to 2000 he was a councilor in the provincial council of Bari chaired by Marcello Vernola. After having failed to return to parliament in 2001, he decided to go to the other side of the “barricade” and put his experience in support first of Emiliano mayor and then of Antonio Decaro.
