In recent days I have received many promised votes in favour of the Italia dei Valori party.
Here is one from Marco Travaglio.
"Two years ago I voted for the Italia dei Valori party, mainly because their candidate for my Piemonte was Franca Rame, an extraordinary person who, I am pleased to say, I contributed to sending to the Senate. I honestly think that this time around I will again be voting for Antonio Di Pietro’s party. I have taken note of all the objections raised by the party’s critics, inter alia, the paternalistic and personal management style of the party, which has been abandoned by some, the unseemly act of letting the party rent offices in a building owned by none other than Di Pietro, the nomination of candidates such as Sergio De Gregorio and Federica Rossi Gasparrini, who then promptly left the IdV party just a few months after being elected, Di Pietro’s commitment, as Minister for Infrastructure, to the TAV (High-speed Train) project for goods from the Valsusa (albeit after having discussed the issue with the area’s residents, including discussions regarding a possible alternative route to the infamous, 54Km “hole” at Venaus); the decision not to close down the “Stretto di Messina” company, notwithstanding the repeated objections against the bridge project, and his “no” to the establishment of a parliamentary commission of inquiry into the G8 affair (something sacrosanct in my opinion, given that parliamentary commissions of inquiry in Italy have a history of muddying the waters and getting in the way of the magisterial investigations. His objection, however, was somewhat clumsily justified by his request that the so-called “Black block” also be investigated, almost as if Parliament should concern itself with crimes committed by common citizens). To make myself perfectly clear, I would much rather vote for an Einaudi or a De Gasperi if they were still alive. However, in anticipation of someone of that calibre managing to get into politics, I believe that abstention – by which I have been sorely tempted for some time – would land up playing directly into the hands of the castes, or the clan. A non-vote, even if practiced on a large scale, means absolutely nothing to the party bureaucracy. Even if there were only three voters in total, the parties would share them out percentage-wise in order to separate the winner from the vanquished. Without giving a damn for the absentees who, in the final analysis, are always in the wrong. Therefore, I think that we need to be realistic, not by voting for the “least bad”, but by voting for the party that we believe is less far away from our own desires.
What has convinced me to vote for the Idv party is Di Pietro’s nomination lists, which include a number of people with values, some of which are my friends, from MicroMega, from the girotondi and that have, in recent years, fought in the battle for legality and freedom of information. I will mention one in particular.
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