Cateno De Luca always likes to make the first move and the first move was useful: a press conference – the first, he announces, of a cycle of appointments that will be repeated every Tuesday – which is usually attended when the elections are a couple of months away. There are two electoral symbols, there is the announcement of five lists “already ready” and, above all, there is a candidate for mayor: Federico Basile. The leader of the South calls North clears away the misunderstandings and also the rumors about his possible return to Messina with the tricolor sash: the current mayor will aim for an encore. And he will do so alongside, among others, a new entry: Maria Fernanda Gervasi will be the new city coordinator of South calls North, in place of councilor Nino Carreri. Gervasi who until now had always played in the centre-right, grew up in Forza Italia (she was also coordinator of the youth area), candidate in 2022 with Ora Sicilia, in recent years side by side with Matilde Siracusano.
But now, he explains, «we are in a phase of great fluidity of people and parties, ideology is one thing, wanting to do something for the territory is another. In Forza Italia there weren’t the conditions to be able to make my contribution, today there are, but it’s not a real separation, and I don’t rule out collaboration.” Does Forza Italia think the same way? The coordinator Antonio Barbera also clears the field of misunderstandings: «Maria Fernanda Gervasi’s choice is exclusively personal and far from any agreement with the party. I don’t understand what it means that the conditions weren’t there for him to make his contribution. Let’s not transform personal choices into the responsibility of the party.”
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