“In this story there are no winners or losers: politics has been lost, the concept of constructive and united opposition has been lost and the unity of purpose of a country that continues to think too much about the singular and too little about the plural has been lost.” Three days after the announcement of the farewell to the political group “Noi, Taormina” of the former mayor Mario Bolognari, the minority councilors Marcello Passalacqua, Lucia Gaberscek and Andrea Carpita explain the reasons for the abandonment, which occurred after a long and painful decision. «An act due exclusively to divergent visions, within the same minority platform – they say – on the method of organizing the council opposition and on the programmatic vision of the work to be done, flaunted a thousand times by our political base, but which has never seen us actively involved. The violent political attacks, which even spilled over into the personal, suffered by individuals belonging to the “Noi Taormina” group, with whom we should have built a proactive alternative platform to the current Administration and which should have seen us united, despite being aware of the presence within various “political souls”, they have done nothing but amplify a growing unease which has become increasingly acute over time as we see ourselves considered to all intents and purposes as “perfect strangers in our own home”. We thank the “Noi Taormina” platform and the prof. Bolognari, to whom we remain humanly linked, for having welcomed us and for having shared battlesresults and also common disappointments. Now, however, our paths are dividing, due to different visions in strategies and ways of behavior.”
The reference is clear to the attack launched by Danilo La Monaca, designated councilor of the “We, Taormina” list, who questioned the real intention of some councilors to oppose the mayor Cateno De Luca, inviting them to resign, targeting particularly Carpita for a 50,000 euro assignment entrusted to him by Asm. «Too often isolated, put aside and never involved in political programming – complain Passalacqua, Gaberscek and Carpita – a convenient lightning rod to hide a widespread poverty of ideas and programs. Furthermore, the methods with which a second council opposition center was created in addition to the present one, without us being, I won’t say consulted, but at least made aware of it, only to learn it with amazement directly during the municipal council which sanctioned it creation, had no small weight in our decision.”
