Turns and turns, to understand politics in Trapani today, perhaps it is necessary to take a step back. And we go back to 2007 again. How boring, you might say, old stuff. 17 years ago. And yet the story is interesting. It is the year in which the current Mayor of Trapani, Giacomo Tranchida, attempts, and succeeds, to make the big leap, and move from Valderice, where he was first citizen, to Erice (where he will be elected, albeit with great difficulty, and from there he will then do the further work upgrades in Trapani).
Today Tranchida seems to be the undisputed master of Trapani politics. All his political opponents have been eliminated by investigations and convictions, which actually also affected people close to him, but without eliciting the same reaction from him, or his allies.
That 2007 election campaign seems to be a concentration of stories that emerge years later. One, for example, shrouded in mystery, concerns those strange interceptions that came out who knows how (and which we revealed on TP24), which told how Tranchida had an excellent advisor and confidant, the then Chief of Mobile, Giuseppe Linares, to whom he turned to ask for bugs, for example, and who suggested to him who he should talk to and who not, who he should meet and who not.
Who knows if Tranchida also told the other half-mass story in Linares: that is, on the one hand he spoke with him, on the other hand, however, he would have been ready to make electoral agreements with the “magician” Luigi Manuguerra.Having recently passed away, Manuguerra has been called by Tranchida in the worst ways over the years, including that of “robe carrier”. He also denounced him for vote swapping, for the promise of jobs in exchange for votes, again during the 2007 electoral campaign in Erice. Manuguerra was convicted for that affair and then also ended up under house arrest. But the strange thing is that while he denounced it with one hand, many maintain that with the other hand Tranchida was looking for Manuguerra to make electoral agreements, offering sub-government positions in exchange for votes.
Manuguerra was indicated by Tranchida as a kind of absolute evil in Trapani politics. The fact is, however, that Tranchida would have looked for him, to have his votes. And when Nino Oddo, former regional parliamentarian and another name on Tranchida’s blacklist, revealed it, he was sued by the mayor. On appeal Oddo won the case. And the reasons of the Court of Appeal, published a few days ago, now perhaps put a firm point on that matter and pallow us to make some considerations.
The acquittal, on appeal, for Nino Oddo came in March. He was convicted in the first instance. The judges of second instance instead decided that “The fact does not exist“.
It all began in 2007 when Tranchida was a candidate for the administrative offices of Erice, as an aspiring mayor pitted against the then outgoing mayor Ignazio Sanges.
At the center of it all is… a pizzeria. In that pizzeria you would be a dinner was consumed, with a pact, between Giacomo Tranchida and Cettina Montalto (Luigi Manuguerra’s partner, candidate in the elections), in view of the vote: the Manuguerra would have voted and made people vote for Tranchida.
When Oddo reports this agreement, the current Mayor of Trapani sues him for defamation. He loses.
Tranchida, when he was heard in the trial, had pointed out that he had not participated in the dinner organized at the Vecchia America restaurant, where Luigi Manuguerra was present. “I went to the place – the mayor said – returning from an electoral rally in Napola, for a greeting and a recommendation to those present, namely to always travel on straight roads”.
“That agreement in the pizzeria took place and I was promised a department or FuniErice as a sub-government” said Cettina Montalto (former municipal councilor in Erice, former candidate for Mayor also in Erice and former partner of Luigi Manuguerra) when she testified. In exchange, the woman and her supporters would have had to vote for Tranchida as mayoral candidate and not Ignazio Sanges, the outgoing mayor.
Nino Oddo comments: “Today, unfortunately for the times of Italian justice, 17 years after the events, it is ascertained that the Tranchidian power system in Trapani and Erice has at its foundations the support, bordering on illegality, coming from a shameful agreement on a political level and morale which was decisive in the 2007 municipal elections in Erice to elect Tranchida mayor and start the climb from there”.
Councilor Simona Mannina (who at the time of the events was still a young girl) is not directly involved in the matter, but, having followed the facts over time, she too makes a point on the matter: “The political history of this Province should be rewritten. There was an agreement in 2007 between Luigi Manuguerra and Tranchida, evidently determining the latter’s run-off with Sanges.”
Mannina continues: “All this necessarily leads to the following considerations:
1. Tranchida by closing the agreement with Manuguerra would have benefited from the latter’s votes, including those, at this point, according to his complaint, ILLEGAL;
2. Not only did he take the votes without maintaining the political agreements made, but he denounced Manuguerra with a REGISTRATION, benefiting (evidently) from those votes anyway (at this point only to get him out of the way politically).
From that moment began the torment of a family, a man, a son, accused by the same man who should probably have said THANK YOU because they contributed to his political rise… this is the person, this is the politician, who always and continues to criminalize political opponents…”.
But what are we talking about? We’ll get into the details tomorrow –
The lawsuit arises from a post by Oddo from January 2017: “The I have been supporting for a long time. Today the confirmation of the interested party. The origin of TRANCHIDA’s power in Erice is in the agreement that he negotiated under the table with MANUGUERRA during the 2007 administrative elections. I am not asking the judiciary for any further information. It’s not necessary. During the hearing, the Court of Trapani has already collected the depositions under oath of various eyewitnesses of the agreement between the two. The question concerns the climate of intimidation in this province, which allows it, despite the presence of these skeletons in the closet, to occupy the media with
appeals to legality which, in his case, smack of hypocrisy. The hypocrisy of a man who, to achieve his political objectives, never hesitated to look for shortcuts.” In short, according to Oddo Tranchida, in order to win the elections, he had made an agreement with Manuguerra, who he had then denounced for vote-swapping, and had been convicted precisely for those elections.
At first instance Oddo was sentenced to pay a fine of 1500 euros and to pay damages to Tranchida. Oddo appeals, also because the conviction actually confirms the political agreement, based on the witnesses who were heard: “Not only Tranchida undertook to recognize a position in the administration for Montalto (Manuguerra’s wife) but … there were numerous preparatory meetings to reach the agreement”.
Oddo is acquitted, in the second instance, because he is recognized as having exercised the right to criticize. And the Court also recalls that it is true, it emerged already at first instance that “Tranchida, as candidate for mayor of Erice in the municipal elections held in 2007, took part in a series of meetings and electoral dinners with Manuguerra Luigi and his wife Montalto Concetta, candidate for the city council in a different political party”.
There are many witnesses who confirm the agreement. Leonardo Tagliavia for example “reported that Manuguerra’s wife supported another candidate for mayor (Sanges), but suddenly during the electoral campaign she had veered towards Tranchida, supporting his candidacy”. He adds that “Tranchida and Manuguerra had met confidentially in their warehouse where they discussed political issues.” He had also organized a second meeting between the Manuguerras and Tranchida only to discover that the latter had recorded the entire conversation (a vice that seems recurring to the Mayor of Trapani, as emerges from the story of his phone calls with Linares) which he then attached to the complaint to Manuguerra for an exchange vote. The story, reconstructed like this, is truly singular: first Tranchida and Manuguerra make an agreement, and then Tranchida denounces him for an exchange vote…
Other texts confirm the agreement, such as Giacomo Augugliarowho acted as an intermediary for the two, and who remembers the one he calls “the electoral meal”, which went very well, so much so that Tranchida even made a nice speech: “He gave a nice speech, very nice, as per his relevance… and nothing, after the speech he got a couple of minutes of applause from the bystanders…”. It’s still: “Mayor Tranchida said that he would reserve for the candidate Montalto an important position within the Erice administration or subordinately to the Funierice”.
They also remembered dinner Nino Maisano, the owner of the restaurant”Old America” where the dinner had taken place, and the journalist Natale Salvo, who had interviewed Maisano, as he was intrigued by the singular circumstance that Tranchida had participated in an electoral dinner with a candidate for the municipal council militant in a different political party. From Maisano, Salvo had learned that the dinner had been paid for by Manuguerra and that Tranchida had made a short speech in which he had argued that in the event of an electoral victory they would “everyone won” . In fact, when the ballot papers were counted, it emerged that many of Montalto’s voters had not voted for mayor Ignazio Sanges, supported by Montalto’s own electoral list, but for Tranchida.
This is the famous interview.
Another witness says the same thing, Alberto Pollari: a few days before the elections he had received a visit from Manuguerra who had told him that they would have to change political strategy and support, as candidate for mayor, Tranchida and not Sanges; and in the end Tranchida went to the runoff, also thanks to the disjointed votes expressed by Montalto voters.
The first instance sentence already defined Tranchida’s behavior “unscrupulous”.
In short, converging testimonies, which the judge at first instance ignored. It appears in point of fact that Tranchdia participated in more than one meeting”private and public, with Manuguerra, envisaging possible advantages for Montalto on such occasions in exchange for electoral support from the group headed by Manuguerra himself”.
Knowing this after all this time is not much consolation. However, this singular cross-section emerges, which tells a lot about power in Trapani and Erice. “It’s all indecent: my father’s grades were dirty, but when they were useful to Tranchida, they were good – comments today Alessandro Manuguerra, son of Luigi – Why didn’t the judiciary intervene? Tranchida became Mayor of Erice thanks to my father, Luigi Manuguerra, who then became for him like a dangerous bandit”.
“There was an agreement between my father and Tranchida. Tranchida is now a powerful politician – comments Manuguerra disheartenedly – my father instead died and didn’t get justice.”
