23 May 2007
Referendum, budging the system
I’m publishing an interview given to Il Sole 24 Ore and published today on page 17.
“Today the parties have to look beyond themselves, abandon the politics of blackmail that serves only to keep your own niche. The election referendum is the only antidote to Italy’s illness that is the partitocrazia.
The referendum is the only democratic tool, as in 1993, to give a shove to the political system. Antonio Di Pietro, leader of Italia dei Valori uses strong words to come into the ring in favour of an election referendum. He does this with a reflection on the widening feeling of hostility to politics.
And with a parallel between what is happening now and what happened in 1990, when he was the Prosecutor of Mani Pulite, the number one cause of the fall of politics. He says: “This time there will not be the judicial route: Tangentopoli is being carried on day by day. Worse than before, but there will not be another Mani Pulite because indifference is dominating.
The role of shoving the political system that the magistracy had 15 years ago can only now be taken over by the Internet.
There are blogs where hundreds of thousands of people meet up to talk about politics. A politician would not be able to get these into the streets.
Il Sole 24 Ore: Minister Di Pietro, the Italian illness is the electoral law, the return of the proportional?
Antonio Di Pietro: Yes, but let us not deceive ourselves that it will ever be changed by this political class. The election law that is changed by this Parliament can only be according to its own image and likeness.
Don’t ask a robber to give himself up to go to prison, biblical repentance has never been seen in politics.
Il Sole 24 Ore: Massimo D'Alema says that the wind of 1992 is blowing and that the political class is at risk of going home. What do you think?
Antonio Di Pietro: It’s an observation with foundation. But in these fifteen years, politics has had all the time in the world to regenerate itself at the level of the political personnel, to reconvert itself on an ethical level, to revitalize itself from the viewpoint of political action.
I have been in the government for a few months and I am in the action party. But all those who in these fifteen years have done politics on the left and on the right lament that politics has lost contact with the citizens, when they are the main cause of this landslide.
Il Sole 24 Ore: Is there still the moral issue?
Antonio Di Pietro: More serious than before. When Mani Pulite happened, it was a news item that many politicians were trapped with their hands in the marmalade and it caused indignation. Today there are still politicians with their hands in the marmalade but it no longer hits the news.
Il Sole 24 Ore: Who are you referring to?
Antonio Di Pietro: In the Lower House there are about 20 people who have been convicted and they should not have been candidates neither on the right nor on the left.
There is someone who has been convicted and has been declared out of Parliament , actually called Previti, but the President of the Lower House, called Bertinotti, hasn’t yet found a moment to say to him, “please stay outside”? Here there is transversal politics.
Il Sole 24 Ore: Are you thinking of any particular measure?
Antonio Di Pietro: I am shouting about this conflict of interests that Italia dei Valori will not vote for. We will vote NO. There’s no vote of confidence, we will not be obliged to accept anything uncomfortable.
The first article of this draft law should declare the ineligibility of the people who have been convicted.
The second article the ineligibility of those who use public goods as managers of services or concessions. It is a rigged competition if someone participates and is able to use public goods.
Il Sole 24 Ore: Are you pessimistic?
Antonio Di Pietro: Yes. Anyone who commits a crime, remains unpunished. From the citizens there is discouragement, sliding, apathy, indifference, lack of esteem. There can be only one democratic way out of all this.
Il Sole 24 Ore: Which is?
Antonio Di Pietro: The election referendum. It would change the cards on the table. It is a democratic weapon. Italia dei Valori, even though it is one of the parties that the referendum will make disappear, is in favour of this solution because in a moment that is so delicate you can no longer do a rearguard struggle to save parties and tiny parties. We need to shake off this despising of politics that is not the fault of politics but of the politicians who have spoken well and acted badly.
Il Sole 24 Ore: Examples?
Antonio Di Pietro: The other day in the meeting preparatory to the Council of Ministers a law was being discussed that reduced the sentence for bankruptcy and would send all the crimes committed by the local wide boys into the cut-off time frame.
We were talking about reducing waste and they were passing a law about the foundations of politics, if it hadn’t been for us in Italia dei Valori, it would have been another enormous cash box to milk funds from the State, and thus from the citizens, on behalf of the parties.
Il Sole 24 Ore: Will there be a new Tangentopoli?
Antonio Di Pietro: The whole of Tangentopoli is already here, but there won’t be another Mani Pulite. Because before there was a popular investigation that accompanied the investigations of the magistracy, whereas today there is acceptance and indifference from the citizens because nothing will change anyway.
Il Sole 24 Ore: So the judicial route to reform this time is excluded?
Antonio Di Pietro: The judicial route is happening every day, the magistrates are working, but it no longer hits the news. I believe that Geronzi has some problem with the justice system. But it doesn’t seem to prevent him from today being in all the newspapers with bank mergers. This is the same for the political class, the entrepreneurial class, for information.
Il Sole 24 Ore: The costs of politics are growing. Politics is even more of a job.
Antonio Di Pietro: Even this is absurd, to make politics into a job. A Local Councillor in Palermo gets 3-4 thousand a month. Politics has become a competition for a job. And these are costs for the institutions.
Then there are frightening costs of politics, starting with the financing of the parties. First there were the kick backs. Now a law has been made that makes it possible to get the same exorbitant sums of money as before
It’s enough to be in a group in the Regional Council and you get loads of money. Everywhere a justification has been created to make legal whatever is substantially immoral.
Il Sole 24 Ore: Has it become a system?
Antonio Di Pietro: This is the metamorphosis of the Tangentopoli of once upon a time, the engineering of the system. Before, crimes were committed to get immoral ends. Today acts are committed that are not crimes, but they are still immoral.
Il Sole 24 Ore: Is the Democratic Party helping political renewal?
Antonio Di Pietro: The Democratic Party is like a doctor’s scalpel. It can be used to put the citizen in contact with politics and above all to substitute the current political class.
If, however, it is only used to legitimize the current political class, it is the scalpel that the doctor uses when he wants to kill his wife.
Il Sole 24 Ore: You have created a new political grouping. Did you have difficulty in recruiting political personnel of the right level?
Antonio Di Pietro: Italia dei Valori and the Lega are the political parties that were created spontaneously by the citizens who go from protesting to responsibility. They get together and they go to the institutions. We and the Lega had a common objective: to change the generations in politics.
For a new political force, the critical thing is to avoid the recycled people and the opportunists. Up until the last elections, Italia dei Valori had to suffer this blackmail, but in the meantime we have found ourselves in the Internet world in a one to one relationship with all the citizens.
Our objective is to go beyond the traditional party to get to the virtual meeting place of the Internet that will allow us to dialogue directly and to recruit political personnel directly.
Il Sole 24 Ore: Will the Internet have a role in political renewal?
Antonio Di Pietro: It will be the end of the system of the parties. The more the Internet goes ahead the more the party system will become an empty box.
Today the citizen wants to talk directly with those they consider to be their employees: the politicians. The Internet will be the measure of bad information and it will resolve all the conflicts of interest.
Posted by Antonio Di Pietro in Politics