“It’s better to be criticized for fighting a difficult battle than for backing away like others have done.” Matilde Siracusano has a volcano boiling inside her. And if the judgment on Federico Basile’s victory, as the hours pass, becomes much more balanced and “institutional”, however, anger towards some components of the coalition is growing. The Undersecretary for Relations with Parliament does not mention names but considerations which, in fact, involve the entire Messina centre-right establishment.
She ended up on the bench of the “defendants”: do she feel she did everything wrong, candidacy, electoral campaign, strategies?
«Let’s start from a fact: Messina was a challenge almost bordering on the impossible. We know what the De Luca-Basile system is and I’m not making any judgments on the merits. It is such a strong and consolidated system that it has no other terms of comparison in Italy. This is why on television, on Rai, I spoke about the Messina “anomaly”, but without a negative connotation. Anyone who left did so in a position of clear disadvantage. And we all knew this. I put my face into it, I put the time, the passion and the heart into it. Others don’t. All these lionhearted people who are playing massacre against me, what have they proposed? Now everyone is criticizing Marcello Scurria’s candidacy, I remain convinced that it was the right choice.”
But the electoral campaign based largely on attacks on the outgoing administration did not pay off in electoral terms. Isn’t it time for self-criticism?
«Scurria carried out a great electoral campaign, he responded point by point, he reacted to the De Luca method, to the tone that has now become commonplace in Messina electoral campaigns. Nobody can be scandalized. And to those who say that this was the worst electoral campaign, I say no, you are forgetful, don’t you remember Cateno De Luca’s attacks against Dino Bramanti or Maurizio Croce? But it is absolutely not true that we didn’t talk about programs. I, Scurria, Carlotta Previti, have presented important proposals for the city.”
But why Scurria, who has never been part of the centre-right, and not others?
«The candidate Scurria had an added value compared to other names: he was one of the architects of the rehabilitation of the slums in Messina. He was the creator of the law that established Arisme, and then he fought, together with me and De Luca himself, who was mayor at the time, for the special law. And again as extraordinary deputy commissioner. He knows the city, the villages, the suburbs, he was the right man in the right place. And then he left alone, first of all, when the center-right didn’t know what to do. And neither in that phase nor in the subsequent one did I hear proposals from other marketable names.”
But which allies did they “betray”?
«I’m not talking about betrayal. There have been loyal allies, others less so. There are those who have sinned through generosity and those through sloth. I knew the risk of becoming the scapegoat but what was the alternative? Should we reach an agreement with Basile and get it to 90%?”.
Forza Italia, however, paid the heaviest bill.
«In some respects yes, in others no. Meanwhile, we are present in the Council, because today (yesterday for those reading) the newly elected councilors elected from Scurria’s list as mayor, Giuseppe Capurro and Simona Contestabile, announced the move to FI. The same list supporting the mayoral candidate was, in fact, the second of Forza Italia. And therefore, if we add the percentages, we exceed 8 percent. But, it’s true, in Forza Italia the internal competitions have partially emptied the list.”
And the city secretary, Antonio Barbera, resigned.
«His step backwards is my own step backwards. It’s like I resigned. I have no party organizational roles, I believe I am carrying out the mandate I received as undersecretary to the best of my ability, but if you want a scapegoat, here I am: it’s me and Antonio Barbera. Crucify us.”
The parade of ministers brought no votes…
«I repeat: I am a parliamentarian, I brought Messina to the attention of the national government, I also did it when I was an opposition deputy. No one can accuse me of this. The actions produced, from the Redevelopment to the Falcata Zone, speak for me. I was the first to make myself available to the city, even with the administrations of De Luca and Basile. I have always collaborated with them, even after the violent clashes and clearly sexist attacks that I had to suffer. But for me Messina comes first and the commitments we asked of the ministers during the election campaign did not only apply to Scurria, the mayor. They are even more valid today that Basile is here again. I will be the first to commit myself in this direction.”
Did the Bridge issue weigh on this electoral campaign?
«I don’t think so. I reminded Bonelli of this on TV: in the geographical area of No Ponte the Left has collapsed, in Reggio and Messina.”
How is the center-right reconstructed in Messina now?
«I will start again as I always have: sense of government even in opposition. We will try to build an alternative project.”