«Colleague, sit next to us. Without us, you don’t win. Without the center, you will continue to lose forever.” Clemente Mastella welcomes the arrival of with a biting joke Francesco Menna, mayor of Vasto, who invites him to «come on holiday to Vasto, like many of his fellow citizens». Today the former minister and current mayor of Benevento is on an electoral tour in Abruzzo together with his wife Sandra, candidate for the European Parliament for the United States of Europe list, promoted by Matteo Renzi and composed of Italia viva, Psi, Italian Radicals, Italia c ‘is and Libdem. At the press conference in Piazza Pudente he does the honors Riccardo Alinoviformer provincial secretary of Udeur, the party that Mastella founded in 1999.
«We have the ambition to truly create a United States of Europe, carrying forward those reforms that President Mattarella tells us. Reforms written based on the needs that the territories are waiting to see represented”, says Sandra Lonardo, who presents herself in the European elections as Sandra Mastella. He says that southerners must not vote for centre-right parties: «They want to divide North and South with differentiated autonomy. Of course, the referendum will be needed and already 60 percent of Italians say they are against it.” A clear no, also because “we in the South are already at a disadvantage”, underlines the former senator. You say you have already represented Abruzzo, because “I have already brought the problems of this territory to the Senate”.
For Clemente Mastella «the territorial bond is very important. Today we don’t know the representatives in the European Parliament, there is no connection. My wife has made the commitment that she will be your fellow citizen of Vasto.” “With Renzi we are trying to rebuild the centre, because without the centre-left you can’t win.” He proudly claims to have been “a minister with both Berlusconi and Prodi”. In 2006 the centre-left « won by only 25 thousand votes. We in Campania received 250 thousand votes, without us there is no victory for the centre-left.” He criticizes the judiciary, recalling that “my wife had to stay out of Campania for nine months” when, as president of the Campania Regional Council, she was investigated. The process ends with “acquittal because the fact does not exist”. The appeal: «I call together my Christian Democrat friends», because «we must vote against the parties of differentiated autonomy».
