Fight corruption to defend Resistance

(ANSA) - Rome, May 6 - Fighting corruption is one way to preserve the values of the Resistance movement that opposed the Nazi occupation of Italy in World War II, House Speaker Laura Boldrini told students on Friday.
    "We must fight corruption and eradicate it - this too is a way to keep the values of the Resistance alive and defend their conquests," Boldrini said.
    "Political parties must clean up their own houses before the judiciary gets wind, because by the time the judiciary steps in the damage has been done," she told students at a Lower House conference titled Lessons in the Resistance.
    "A corrupt politician always makes the headlines, but unfortunately corruption...is a virus that has infected the whole society," Boldrini went on. "It is a virus that has infected the civil service and the private sector. Having said that, a corrupt politician is guilty twice over - because he of what he does, and because he betrays citizens' trust".
    Parliament, political parties, and unions must renew themselves but must not be demolished because there can be no democracy without them, she added.
    Boldrini is the third-highest official in the nation, after Senate Speaker Pietro Grasso and President Sergio Mattarella.