“It’s time to turn the page, we need a real political turning point based on work, development and social justice. The city deserves a leader capable of planning the future, not chasing consensus” said the provincial secretary of the Messina PD, Armando Hyerace, on the sidelines of the provincial management which met yesterday, and on the occasion of which a summary document of the work and political objectives for the short and medium term was unanimously approved, also in view of the upcoming local elections. According to the Democratic Party, the De Luca and Basile administrations have failed to bring that necessary leap in quality to the city and the entire metropolitan area. The data speaks clearly: today Messina is poorer, more fragile and more unequal, despite the extraordinary opportunities offered by the PNRR to build a true strategic growth project. Instead, ordinary management, at times welfare-based, was preferred, without a structural vision of development. In recent years, millions of euros have been invested in image operations, spot events and communication, rather than in stable jobs, support for businesses, strengthening social services and youth policies capable of creating lasting prospects, and not simple short-term interventions. Mayor Basile’s resignation represents yet another sign of a political system turned in on itself, more attentive to its own survival than to the future of the city.
“The Democratic Party presents itself as the central force of a broad and inclusive coalition, an alternative to deluchism and the centre-right, to build a government program that puts work, development, culture, sustainability and participation at the centre. The objective is to start a new season, capable of regenerating Messina and giving it back a perspective in the heart of the Mediterranean”, concludes Hyerace.
The document of the Democratic Party
The Metropolitan City of Messina needs a Municipal Administration capable of implementing a vision and a perspective capable of building sustainable development and social justice.
Messina remains at the bottom of all the rankings regarding economic growth, quality of life, social and generational equity. It is a city that has not chosen its model of socio-economic development from which thousands of people, especially young people, flee and never return.
It is a city with 50 kilometers of coastline but does not have a relationship with the sea, it is home to a prestigious university, with a strong international dimension, but it is not a university city, it has a port with clear commercial and tourist potential, but it does not focus on ports and shipbuilding, it has important cultural deposits, in the museum and monumental heritage but does not choose culture as a lever for development, it is characterized by over forty villages but does not exploit this polycentricity in any way. Under the shadow of a bridge that doesn’t exist, Messina has not chosen its place and its strategic function in the Strait area, in the heart of the Mediterranean.
The challenge of the Democratic Party, together with the political, social and civic forces of the progressive camp, is to offer a vision of the future, a project that clearly indicates a perspective and a path. We need a government program that goes well beyond the ordinary administration or management of essential public services.
The leadership group of the Messina PD, together with members, members and militants, must measure themselves on the ability to build an aggregation that is not only electoral but capable of sharing, together with the trade union and employer forces, the Third Sector, the world of production and that of culture, public policies aimed at overcoming an inexorable decline which even the De Luca and Basile administrations have not been able to remedy. Deluchian populism has administered the Metropolitan City of Messina, unable to systematize the extraordinary moment linked to the resources of the PNRR, of which some parking lots will remain almost useless, instead setting up a network of strong and structured relationships, through professional assignments, direct assignments, hiring in investee companies, bimonthly internships, in a logic with a strong clientelistic and at the same time welfare flavor.
The city is dying, the economy is at a standstill, the poverty figures are growing, the number of boys and girls who do not study or work is growing. This is how the good governance of a community is measured. The De Luca and Basile administrations have not allowed the Messina community to make any progress on this.
In this scenario, Federico Basile’s resignation is the confirmation of a system of power functional to its self-maintenance also in the perspective of next year’s Regional Elections. At the center of this system there is obviously not the superior interest of the Messina community but the fate of Cateno De Luca and his associates.
The Democratic Party intends to fly high, interpreting the function assigned by the current political phase: to be the central infrastructure around which an open and inclusive coalition is built that implements a project distinct and distant from Deluchism and the center-right.
The Democratic Party calls together all the political and civic subjects who not only recognize themselves in the so-called Campo Largo, which was able to conquer regions and cities at the latest electoral deadlines, but also all the women and men, girls and boys who together were involved yesterday in the referendum on Labor and today in the one on Justice, in the movement for Peace and against the genocide in Gaza and the condition of the Palestinian people, in the mobilizations against the construction of the bridge over the Strait of Messina and for sustainable development of the South.
Together we must define a political proposal capable of responding to the needs of workers in private companies and public bodies, unemployed men and women, small artisan businesses and innovative companies in the field of material and immaterial production, the world of culture, university schools and scientific research, subjects of cooperation and social and educational work, girls and boys who are students and university students, to build a response to the social and economic crisis of the city in a highly inclusive and regenerative dimension of the urban fabric.
Messina has an entrepreneurial fabric made up of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises that trade not only with Italy but also with the world, which have clashed with a Municipal Administration that does not respond or that spends without a vision of growth and a far-sighted political proposal, the many resources that have rained on the city since 2014.
We need a city that concretely supports those who produce, simplifying procedures, creating efficient infrastructure, enhancing the port, logistics, innovation and sustainable tourism.
At the same time, it is necessary to build urban policies that make the city more livable: accessible educational services, functioning transport, safe neighborhoods, well-kept public spaces. We need to develop tools that create opportunities for young people and support women’s work. Only a strategy that brings together economic development and quality of life can get Messina moving again and restore confidence in those who invest, work and choose to stay today.
The PD is ready to do its part by fielding its own ideas, its own resources, deploying an extraordinary effort of militancy and passion so that Messina can get back on top, can get back up, starting from a new season of participation and sharing in which politics listens and wants to rebuild together with the best pieces of this city.