I was very struck by the circumstance that the centre-right in Torre Annunziata, led by my friend Carmine Alfano, decided to raise the stakes during the run-off by resorting to arguments that were completely foreign to the culture of that group.
The emphasis with which it is asked not to vote for the opposing candidate because he is supported by a list friendly to the former mayor, already investigated for the well-known facts that led to the dissolution, is a banal political error.
First of all, it should be remembered that this investigation has not yet even resulted in a request for indictment, and that many doubts arise about the overall investigative structure.
It must also be remembered, and it hardly needs repeating, that every citizen enjoys the presumption of innocence until a final sentence is reached.
These principles have been mistreated by that part of the justiciar left, later emigrated to the Five Star Movement, which has made these deviations an instrument of political struggle.
Therefore, resorting to these arguments once again means entering a funnel from which there is no escape.
The history of these last decades shows that in the end there is always someone who imagines himself to be cleaner than the other, in a series of primitive socio-political errors that do not take into account the circumstance that man has given himself rules because he is instinctively not led to respect them, therefore the issue is not the call to a rhetorical and stale legality, but rather the need for an ethical code that puts respect for the rules first.
And among the basic rules there should be respect for the adversary, and the need to base the debate on programs and ideas and not on demonizing the adversary, a temptation that, unfortunately, has not yet deserted the benches of politics.
The response from the centre-left was not long in coming, and now it is Alfano to be in the dock, for objectively serious facts.
If we do not understand that we need to raise the level of comparison, we are destined, especially here in the South, to instability, mediocrity and a continuous involution.
Elio D'Aquino
Article published on 18 June 2024 - 20:43
Video Chronicles
