Antonio Di Pietro - Cambiare l’Italia

9 February 2010

Appeal for Campania

I feel the need to explain to you people of the internet, the reasons why Italia dei Valori has decided to support the candidacy of De Luca as candidate for the position of governor of Campania. I have to do this because I’ve received important criticism from quite a few of you and this criticism is founded and I agree with it.

You say that De Luca is on trial for crimes against the Public Administration and you are asking why we are supporting his candidacy, and why we couldn’t do something different. This is the drama: different in what way? When there’s a regional election, few candidates present themselves for the position of president of the Region with the parties that support them.

The Centre Right is supporting Cosentino, that Undersecretary that is subject to a restriction order for association for committing crime, because he is accused of having a relationship with the Casalesi clan in Campania. That Centre Right has indicated their own candidate, Caldoro, who could win the elections. From 29 March and for 5 years, if he were to win, we would be entrusting Campania to characters who have connections with the Casalesi clan and the camorra. I’m not just referring to Caldoro as candidate president, but to that set of characters, to that political undergrowth of the Centre Right that is supporting them and that provides a “cover” for them, a “trait d'union” between the camorrist system that is in fact governing the territory.

A political force like Italia dei Valori, before placing itself as an obstacle to everything and everyone, has to know that if it doesn’t do everything possible on 29 March, to avoid Campania being entrusted to the real control of the Casalesi clan, it has to realise that it has to accept its responsibility. I am taking this responsibility, because in the face of the possibility of the next five years having the regional government of Campania in the hands of a system that is in the hands of characters who show no mercy (ask Sandokan), in relation to all this, it’s necessary to construct a democratic alternative of resistance and defence. How do you do that? Either you have a revolution, and in this case you cannot, or you have to construct a framework of alliances to try to reach 51% in the forthcoming elections.

You would need, and it would have been better, a person as candidate for the presidency that is a clean break, an alternative. As Italia dei Valori, before giving up, we looked for a person to be an alternative candidate. We even asked de Magistris to offer himself as a candidate, but Luigi pointed out something very true: he has just been elected a European parliamentarian, and appointed Chair of the European Union Budgetary Control Committee for all European funding, and he was elected because of the votes received from the whole of Italy, and we cannot ask him to be a “traitor”.

I made appeals on the radio, through the internet, even when I was a guest on ‘Repubblica TV’ a few days ago, and I said: “Is it possible that we can’t manage to find a clean-break candidate who can represent the unity of the Centre Left voters in Campania? No one made themselves available. I found myself faced with a dramatic alternative. On the one hand, to entrust Campania to the clan of the Casalesi. On the other hand, to support a candidacy, that of De Luca, who is on trial and who has already been chosen as a candidate by the other parties. In all this, with the awareness that if we all find ourselves in agreement, we can stop the drift towards the Casalesi.

I called De Luca. I got him to come before thousands of witnesses at the Italia dei Valori national conference, on the Internet, on the TV stations, so that they can be witnesses and notaries of five formal commitments that he has to make.

First: If he is found guilty, he has to resign.

Second: In the period of his term of office, he must never invoke “legitimate impediment”. He has to rush off to the judge and get himself judged as fast as he possibly can.

Third: He must not allow himself to attack the magistracy even if he is on trial.

Fourth: If he manages to become President, as his first action, he has to pick up a sweeping brush and remove all that leadership class, of political appointees, that has represented “clientelism”, “business-ism”, and nepotism for all these years.

Fifth:He has to establish a regional house of glass, and broadcast on the web all the regional council meetings and the regional cabinet meetings and he has to put on the internet every measure that is taken. Basically, a transparent house certified by a department of transparency and control, in the hands of external people, who can verify its legitimacy.

...

8 February 2010

Italia dei Valori conference concluded

The three days of Italia dei Valori’s conference have ended. I was confirmed in the role of president. The person elected as responsible for youth was Rudi Russo. An 11 point programme was approved and I invite you to read that (visit the area for the programme). Below I’m publishing my opening speech given on Friday 5 February.

I’m also publishing the note that I have passed on to the agencies, about the serious intimidation against Giulio Cavalli and the discovery of a 23 bullets, yesterday in Milan, in the area of “teatro Oscar” where his show was due to start, but was then postponed. This is intimidation that is surely connected to his decision to go into politics with Italia dei Valori:

Italia dei Valori and I myself personally, are closely supporting Giulio Cavalli, a victim of a serious intimidation attack. I hope that the magistracy seeks clarification about this worrying happening as soon as possible and that they find those responsible for this mafia-style threat. This was affirmed by the honourable Antonio Di Pietro, leader of Italia dei Valori.

Following: the intervention on Saturday 6 February

5 February 2010

They’re aiming at civil war

The government is getting ready to impugn before the Constitutional Court the regional laws of Apulia, Campania and Basilicata that are preventing the installation of nuclear power stations in the territory of the regions. As regards the existing legal framework, such an operation could be permitted by a law, but in terms of the existing situation, it’s a declaration of war that will take Italy to the brink of a civil war by placing the State against the citizens.

Vendola’s words, when he affirmed that the government has to equip itself with the best armoured tanks to make use of Apulia and its people as it pleases, yesterday seemed to be a provocation.

Tomorrow, with Scajola’s arrogance of an instigator, those words could become reality. The Italians went out into the streets and they went to the urns in 1987, and they closed the door on the nuclear option with a referendum. If Silvio Berlusconi, for his interests and his interpersonal agreements, has decided to take us back twenty years by bringing in a technology that is outdated, noxious and bankrupt, he has to do it using the same method, town by town, region by region and not with his rigged opinion polls. We are fed up of having to make use of motions, referendums, and petitions to reaffirm what was originally decided by using these instruments.

If a government can throw away a referendum, there’s only one way of interpreting that: those who are governing represent an illegitimate organisation that threatens democracy. And let them not brush up the electoral agreement that was not gained by talking of nuclear and many other filthy things that have been realised since they have taken power. We know that it is us citizens, who one more time, will have to have recourse to a referendum to say “no” to nuclear.

Just as for the Lodo Alfano it’s no use waiting for the government to mend its ways, so tomorrow, Italia dei Valori will start the collection of signatures for the referendum against nuclear.

...

4 February 2010

In support of the Alcoa workers

While parliament is paralysed by days of sterile discussion of laws about the impunity to be conceded to the Premier, the streets are filling up with workers and unemployed people. Yesterday it was the turn of Alcoa. In the streets at their side was Italia dei Valori instead of Minister Sacconi or of a representative of the government, as usual (always assuming that they can allow themselves to come down to be among the demonstrators…).

Text of the intervention

Italia dei Valori for once would like to be close to the government if today it were to decide, instead of occupying Parliament with “ad personam” laws, to take measures in favour of Alcoa, and we will vote in favour. If however, one more time, they are just thinking of occupying parliament with the “legitimate impediment”, these workers will die of starvation.

We are here to say that never as in this moment is there the need for social cohesion, to take measures for the workers who tomorrow will no longer have anything to eat. Never as in this moment must the government devote its time to this issue.

It’s absurd that people have to lose their jobs because the government is waiting for manna to fall from heaven. There’s need for measures to be taken straight away and now.

Today, in Parliament, we could vote for a measure all together, Majority and Opposition, to give them the possibility of surviving. Today, however, Parliament has been occupied with doing a law for a single person.

This is social injustice, because the institutions are not dealing with the jobs that no longer exist, with families that don’t get to the end of the month, with the Alcoa workers, with the workers of Termini Imerese and with hundreds of thousands of people in difficulties. We are asking the government to decide to do this, before the social revolution explodes.

2 February 2010

Proud of that dinner

I am proud of having accepted the invitation to the pre-Christmas dinner together with the commander of the Rome Carabinieri, the questor Contrada and other leaders of the institutions. Unlike others who go with the show girls, I went with the carabinieri that worked with me and not in a night club or a restaurant but in a canteen of the carabinieri. I didn’t even know about the existence of the photo. It’ll be the carabinieri that took it.

If someone did something wrong for which they were arrested and found guilty it is he who sullied that dinner, not myself. With these matters, it could have been a provincial newspaper to take up, but “il Corsera” …. They no longer know what to invent, because the IDV is the only Opposition force and the only sheep not in the fold.

If what they say were true, who would have put up the two billion lire confiscated in the “Mani Pulite” investigation? Me with the overtime I earned as a mechanic in Germany? According to these disinformation-providers they would like to feel that they are telling a fairy story that while I was a mechanic in Germany at a certain moment, I was contacted by a KGB agent, no in fact an agent of the CIA, who spoke to me in English and said: “we’ll make a gift of a university degree, then we’ll get you to win a competition for Police Commissioner, then one for the magistracy then we’ll get you into the Milan team of magistrates, then we will dump you in a sack and all together we will defeat this First Republic of CAF (Craxi, Andreotti and Forlani, editor)".

And they all lived happily ever after, in fact they all lived with Berlusconi as the President of the Council … - well do me a favour, let us get on with our work to try to put back together the fragments of this shattered country.

Also read:

- A time for shaming: 12 tricks to back up a theory (15 January 2010)
- Tonino 007 superbond (17 January 2010)

1 February 2010

De Luca is not the alternative

I’m publishing an interview I gave, that is published today in the daily paper “La Repubblica”.

Antonio Di Pietro: But surely the PD hasn’t bought De Luca? Was it the Almighty that said it has to be him? His name is absolutely not the right one to give Campania the new direction it deserves. I don’t see why we have to hang ourselves with blackmail, with forcing for just one. The agreement with the PD stays in place and it is strong for the other 11 Regions.

Repubblica: Di Pietro, does IDV’s veto stay in place even after the PD gives its official decision?
Antonio Di Pietro: There’s a misunderstanding. There’s no IDV veto. There’s a name that is put forward by the PD and that practically the rest of the coalition does not agree with.

Repubblica: There are those who notice a contradiction: you have always hoped for discontinuity after the fifteen years of the Bassolini government, and De Luca has got power with this very same slogan. Now, together with the Bassolini-people, you are asking for De Luca to take a step back.
Antonio Di Pietro: But I want to nothing to do with the logic of the battle between caciques or between sultans. That’s of no interest to me. So they are thrashing the living daylights out of each other? We are saying that the candidacy of De Luca does not unite but divides. There’s more. I’m seeing that it’s him as a candidate who is alone. It’s not the Centre Left that is split. And do we really want to gift Campania to the Centre Right, to Cosentino?

Repubblica: What are your reasons for being against the De Luca option?
Antonio Di Pietro: A political one and an ethical one. Politically, we cannot put the same person who has been governing his bit of territory for years and years and sell him as something new. His politics doesn’t represent discontinuity. We of IDV are not backing the least worst policies. The policies of being resigned.

Repubblica: The other reason relates to the two trials in which the Mayor of Salerno is involved?
Antonio Di Pietro: Yes. I would suggest to the defendant De Luca to spend his time defending himself in the trials. He will have stuff to reconstruct and to speak about.

Repubblica: Vendola was hoping for someone as an alternative, a candidate from civil society. Do you agree?
Antonio Di Pietro: Certainly. We had thought about and agreed on a few names.

Repubblica: Like the university chancellors, Guido Trombetti or Raimondo Pasquino.
Antonio Di Pietro: Certainly. There was agreement on Trombetti. We are for true discontinuity, not just superficial, not proclaimed.

...

31 January 2010

Don't touch the Constitution

Today the Italia dei Valori party took to the streets to defend the Constitution, both in Rome and in Milan.

On various occasions during the course of 2009 this government has stated that they want to amend the Constitution, obviously because in its current state it does not allow them to produce laws for their own use and benefit (the Alfano Bill is but one example of this).

Allowing this government to make amendments to the Constitution would be unthinkable. Instead, they should be focusing their attention on numerous other sectors that are currently in serious trouble, first and foremost being the economic sector.

From our side we can assure you that any attempt to overturn the rule of law and the democracy in this Country will be met with the strongest possible opposition.

29 January 2010

The confession

They have finally confessed and we are now also in a position to provide written proof.

Yes it’s true, the intoxication of impunity and the couldn’t-care-less attitude towards the institutions have led the Popolo della Libertà’s Group Leader and his Deputy, Cicchitto and Bocchino, to finally admit the real reason why the parliamentary majority (entirely subservient to Berlusconi) is determined to approve the law regarding legitimate impediment. Here is the signed letter that the two smart alecs sent out to all the Pdl deputies yesterday. The letter in question reads as follows:

"Dear colleague, with effect from next Tuesday, 2 February, beginning at 10h00, we will be voting on the law regarding legitimate impediment. It is unnecessary to remind you just how important this process is for the PDL, for Prime Minister Berlusconi and for the Government, and we would therefore urge you to ensure that you will be present for the entire duration of next week, without any exception whatsoever. Yours faithfully. Signed: the Hon. Fabrizio Cicchitto and the Hon. Italo Bocchino".

In other words, by their own admission, the law concerning “legitimate impediment” is not a law that is of any use to all of the Country’s citizens, but it is merely “important” to “Prime Minister Berlusconi”. More importantly, the Pdl parliamentarians are literally being summoned to be present for the vote on this law (..urge you to ensure that you will be present for the entire duration of next week, without any exception whatsoever). It’s as if they are saying: as regards everything else we do in Parliament and on those rare occasions when we are not passing any “ad personam” laws, you are free to be absent, but this time not, this time you must be there, "without any exception whatsoever", because Berlusconi really needs this law.

So this is the level that the Italian Parliament has sunk to: merely a tool to be used and abused by the P2-ist regime that has perverted both its role and its operations. Our parliamentarians no longer have any freedom of choice and, if they hope to be re-elected (correction – to be re-appointed by the Master), they have to simply obey without question and lie prostrate at his feet. And so, next week all of the Pdl parliamentarians will flood Montecitorio, unlike what happened this week: the topic of discussion in Parliament was employment and about a hundred of them were missing. Next week, instead, what’s the bet they will all be present and correct in Rome, ready to once again humiliate our Parliament and our Constitution and to shout “Yes, Master” in unison?