Castellammare, the former prime minister: "I'm not a colluder."

Castellammare – A frontal counterattack, steeped in bitterness and surrounded by the documents of a defense that promises to be a legal battle. Roberto Elefante, now former president of the Castellammare di Stabia City Council and a professional who has self-suspended from the Democratic Party, forcefully rejects the accusations contained in the over four-hundred-page report drafted by the Access Commission. This document led to the dissolution of the city council and the end of the administration led by Luigi Vicinanza.

Sitting beside him, in an emotionally charged room crowded with family members and supporters, are former mayor Vicinanza himself, former deputy mayor Giuseppe Di Capua, and councilor Giusy Amato, who also suspended herself from the Democratic Party. Elefante points to a "fabricated reconstruction" and speaks bluntly of a "bogus, if not downright manipulated, report," artfully disseminated.

The accountant, known in the city for his social initiatives for young people, explained at the beginning of the press conference that the Prefecture assured him that the dissolution decree had not yet been published in the Official Journal and that therefore the official report was not yet available. But anyone familiar with the Italian information system knows that the report published in the Official Journal will be redacted, and that the one circulating for days is the real one, deliberately disseminated through the usual political channels and leaked to journalists.

«Insinuations and third-degree kinship»

The inspectors from the Ministry of the Interior have targeted the Castellammare di Stabia accountant's extensive network of professional, corporate, and economic relationships, deemed incompatible with his institutional role as guarantor. Elefante debunks these accusations point by point, with papers in hand.

"I've been a freelancer for 33 years and have lived in this city my whole life," Elefante explains, getting emotional several times. "Reading those documents, I felt like I was being described as the Provenzano of Castellammare. Instead, there's not a single crime charged, there's no evidence, just a barrage of smears. In my case, they dug up to the third and fourth degree of kinship of the firm's partners and clients, while for others, they stopped before that. I don't want to be portrayed as the link between the Camorra and the City Council: I was the first elected by evenly distributed votes, without any cartels or suspicious preference packages."

This defense also concerns Giusy Amato, who has come under fire for the concentration of votes in her home neighborhood: "They want to make her look guilty just because she was elected where she was born and has lived for thirty years," insists the former president of the assembly.

The attack on the Democratic Party: "A double-standard, justice-seeking party."

While the commissioners' report represents the judicial and administrative front, the political one is even more stinging. Elefante retraces his four years as president of the city's Democratic Party branch and expresses his disappointment in a party he believes has abandoned him for internal reasons.

"I don't deny my history, but I won't place my dignity in a party that turns out to be a convenient justice-seeker," the former Democratic Party member attacks. "Were our votes valid when they were needed for regional and general elections? If they were clean then, they are clean today. The principle of due process either applies to everyone or it applies to no one: you don't throw people overboard like this to carry out pre-arranged political plans."

"A cleanup is needed; Ruotolo's is a missed opportunity."

The climate is becoming even more heated on the eve of the public meeting convened by the Democratic Party's regional and metropolitan secretariat on Corso Vittorio Emanuele. Elefante doesn't hold back in his jabs at national and local leaders, directly implicating MEP Sandro Ruotolo.

"When Ruotolo arrived in town, rather than assuming the role of guarantor and unifier, he immediately sided with one faction, acting like a ringleader. His was a missed opportunity for everyone," the former Prime Minister concludes with a dramatic final exhortation. "To hope to rebuild something and re-attract decent people, the Democratic Party must have the courage to eradicate the cancer that has been eating away at it from within for twenty years. Otherwise, there will be no future for this party in Castellammare."