The regional elections of 5 and 6 October in Calabria approach, and never as this year the political debate seems to be intertwined with the theme of female representation. In a panorama traditionally dominated by male voices, it is perhaps even more difficult for women to decide to get involved, bringing different ideas, experiences and visions for the future of the region. We addressed some candidates to the Regional Council for five questions to understand motivations, priorities and proposals, with the aim of offering readers a direct look at the people who ask for the trust of the voters. The first to answer are Alessia Piperno (Green and Left alliance, Central District) and Cetty Scarcella (Forza Italia, South District).
The five questions of the “Gazzetta”
Here are the five questions that we asked to the candidates for the regional council protagonists of our investigation.
1
2. Few women in the regional council, especially in the central and southern circumscriptions. What do you think of the gender issue also linked to representation?
3 How to convince people to go to vote?
4. What are the themes on which it will commit more decision if elected?
5. How do you imagine Calabria in the coming years and what contribution do you think you can give this change?
Alessia Piperno (doctor)
1. I am firmly convinced that our public health service can improve. Every day with my uniform and my ambulance, together with driver and nurse, I find myself in front of humanly devastating situations. I tried myself that sense of anguish that assails you when you are sick and you don’t see a glimmer of light. I can only accept that in a country like ours, in 2025, there are still people forced to turn to private health or his friend on duty to see their own constitutional right made. Honest young people forced to leave this land because they are nauseated by a corrupt system that too often leaves no room for meritocracy. Desperate patients who refer on those few health workers and very few services now present, doctors and nurses underground by working mountains and bureaucracy without any recognition, without even being listened to. Those who had to protect us, help us, support us only managed to create a “war between poor”. You have to say enough to all this and you cannot do it just the month before the elections.
2 I believe women have organizational and management skills, without taking anything to men, clearly superior, obviously with due exceptions. Just think of the organization within our families.
3 In reality, in my opinion, this problem today should not even ask itself. The vote represents the highest form of democracy, the only first, real, concrete step that can be done to return to see that glimmer of light that now seems lost. We read about patients who died for a closed medical guard, on the stretcher of a emergency room waiting for a bed, in their homes, on the street, on the premises waiting for that one ambulance coming from who knows where. We no longer know who to turn to have a visit or a diagnostic examination in reasonable times. In front of all this, on 5 and 6 October you cannot stay at home. It is time to raise your head and say enough.
4. There is no doubt that the Achilles heel is health. Unfortunately, even the current poor efficiency of the public health system is among the reasons that push young families to leave Calabria. My first attention will therefore be aimed at restoring effective health, efficient and accessible to everyone, and the identification of concrete solutions that can increase health personnel and enhance the existing one. However, healthcare certainly does not represent the only criticality, an overview therefore is in my opinion mandatory.
5 The final decision is up to the voters. What I ask is to abandon personal logics: inquire about the candidates, look for them on social channels, ask them around, to those who know them, evaluate not what they say, promise and profess for two months now, but their ideas, their words, their battles, their defending the public good in unsuspected times.
Cetty Scarcella (jurist and agricultural entrepreneur)
1. What prompted me to take the field is love for my territory. I live the difficulties of the internal areas, of the small municipalities, the distance from hospital principals. Forgotten environments, left to degradation especially in our areas of the Aspromontana band (to make only one example the Bovalino-Bagnara road). Then I have always been inclined to improve what is good by interesting me on several fronts, and I am also rooted in the social fabric of other countries. Getting net is the most important thing and we have areas to be enhanced that we have not been able to tell.
2. Especially in the province of Reggio there is the idea that the pink quota is inserted as a filler. In recent years the idea of a politically active woman in our areas has not been very well seen, but I noticed since 2021 that people have started to believe a little more. It is true that women have a little more difficulty in approaching the territory, but there are examples as Giusi Princi who is beating so much in the institutions. For me, the candidacy in Forza Italia is very important and is a sign of the commitment that I have shown in recent years in the social and political context. The fact of having been involved in projects that center the woman at the center, strengthens me. I’m not a feminist, I don’t want to discriminate. There is a need to create union among all.
3. It is a difficulty that encounters daily. It is difficult to make people understand that commitments cannot be made if you are not in a position to be able to do. I have difficulty telling people that things will change because for years it has been promising that these things will change. Something has been done, but it takes time. They are battles that I will carry on.
4. I particularly keep the agricultural sector because I think it is one of the most important sector in Calabria. We must support the sector and companies with real and concrete concessions and with funding also in the bureaucratic sphere, because opening an activity today is really difficult. The bureaucracy must be streamlined and I would like all the products that make Calabria a precious land to be enhanced: from oil to bergamot. The other theme is that of infrastructure and for this I am fighting for the Bovalino-Bagnara (a project never went through). I live daily the areas of the Tyrrhenian and the Ionian, but, I put two hours to arrive on the Ionica.
5. I imagine a more attractive land possible. Even if in the last four years it has been done so much. This summer our Calabria was a destination for tourists, especially foreigners. My idea of Calabria is of a land that is at the top of the rankings in Italy. We have nothing less than other places and we have the right and duty to further enhance our areas. A more liveable land because there are very few young people. We must build a future to be deserved to our children, bringing our skills here, and investing in our land.