Who believes that the election campaign serves to decide the fate of votes gets it all wrong and gets it big. Citizens’ orientation is defined in advance with respect to Elections, very early. Let’s say that already in the first months of government both the choices and the attitude of the administrators indicate the direction that the democratic consensus will take. This is why it is not at the end of the 5 years, but during the 5 years, that new decisions mature.
The relationship between voter and voted is fiduciary. The citizen wants to give his consent to whoever at that moment seems to best reflect his own ideas, feelings of revenge, hope for a better future, hopes not necessarily referring to the future of the city.
The vote it is an instrument of social deterrence, it serves to promote or fail, it is brandished as a punishment that falls on those who have not met our expectations as we would have liked. It is used to water down drinks that are too thick or to sweeten a coffee that is too bitter. Whichever way you look at it, the voter’s judgment is almost never prudent, but always angry and overflowing, and attacks those who believe they have victory in their pocket.
The outgoing mayor Carlo Salvemini, having acquired the electoral data that decrees the victory of his opponent, and animated by a more than understandable post-electoral frustration, he wishes a sibylline imboccallupo to the 600 Lecce citizens who have made the difference, loading on their shoulders the burden of a decision that the forces of center-left consider it harmful for the city. But Salvemini, a mild and balanced person, must be reminded that the citizens who are voters are always the same and a large portion of ‘voters who make the difference’ were also there 5 years ago when Carlo Salvemini won with a significant 50.9% home victory in the first round. In that case a divided centre-right had already wrapped up the defeat which no one wanted to define as harmful or dangerous for Lecce and the people of Lecce. The fair play at least the façade that can be felt on the football pitches is almost always absent in politics and disappointment prevails over personal relationships, also because digesting a double shift with a negative outcome is really not an easy thing to accept.
Just as it won’t be easy for the super-votes on Salvemini’s lists, just think of those who got 1000 or more preferences to now sit on the opposition benches, where the air is different, without that wind in their sails which will rather inflate new sails. Because democracy is sometimes a stepmother, it feeds some and leaves others starving. It’s a terribly inconvenient invention.
