Democratic Party (PD) candidate for
Campania governor Vincenzo De Luca was named Friday among 17
regional-election "unpresentables" by the parliamentary
anti-Mafia commission in a bombshell that sparked a fresh spate
of internecine warfare in the PD.
De Luca's naming among the crime-tainted candidates deemed
unfit to stand for Sunday's vote, due to prior convictions or
pending probes, prompted him to immediately sue the chair of the
commission, Rosy Bindi, a heavyweight within his own PD party.
Announcing the lawsuit via his lawyers, De Luca also
challenged Bindi to a public debate at a time and date of her
choosing.
De Luca claimed Premier Matteo Renzi was the real
target of "attacks" against himself.
"This campaign of aggression...has one objective, which is
to undermine the government and Renzi," he said.
Hard-right MP Francesco Storace was among those who called
for Renzi to quit over how the affair had been managed.
PD Chairman Matteo Orfini condemned the list, and the way
it was released, as akin to old-fashioned, lynch-mob justice.
"(This) takes us back centuries, when trials were done in
the streets, inciting the crowds," Orfini said.
Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, leader of junior
government partner the New Centre Right (NCD), said the
unveiling of the list had unleashed "unprecedented ferocity"
within the PD.
"The argument over the unpresentables is wholly internal
to the PD," Alfano said.
"I saw statements being made of unprecedented ferocity
within one party".
Alfano said "the law will be applied" to De Luca. "This
position is widely shared within government," Alfano said.
"There are a lot of elements to indicate (incumbent Forza
Italia Campania Governor Stefano) Caldoro is the only candidate
that's safe to vote," he added.
Caldoro weighed into the row to say that not only was De
Luca unpresentable but also "ineligible".
He said "his candidacy is against the law, beyond the law".
Bindi defended herself against claims she had damaged the
party and its chances in Campania, saying "no action was taken
in an autonomous way (solely) by chair Bindi".
She said the conclusions had been shared by all commission
members.
Four of the so-called "unpresentables" are running in
Puglia and the rest in Campania, many more of them on the centre
right or in the centre than on the centre left.
De Luca was convicted in January of abuse of office in
connection with an incinerator project while he was mayor of the
city of Salerno, and handed a suspended sentence of a year in
prison plus a one-year ban from holding public office.
As a result of the conviction, he was also suspended from
holding public office for 18 months under a 2012 anti-corruption
law known as the Severino law but the Campania Regional
Administrative Tribunal (TAR) reinstated him three days later.
In a decision Thursday, the supreme Court of Cassation said
ordinary courts, not administrative courts, must rule on cases
coming under the Severino law.
Experts said this would have implications for De Luca, who
could be suspended if he wins Sunday's election.
However De Luca himself has begged to differ.
"The Severino law...is not applicable to those who are
elected for the first time," he said Thursday.
"So I won't be suspended".
He was backed up by Reform Minister Maria Elena Boschi, who
said the Cassation Court ruling "doesn't change anything".
"De Luca is eligible to stand," she said Thursday. "If De
Luca wins we'll respect the law, as always".
On Friday, Bindi said there are no other PD candidates on
the list of crime-tainted candidates.
"We screened some 4,000 candidates," she said.
"The previous commission did the same thing except after
the elections, and it took them a year - we did it in under a
month".
"In Italy we don't have a national criminal database, but
rather 110 (separate ones). This is an overview," she said.
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