While we are moving towards a no from the Government on the third mandate – the decision to present an appeal to the Council could be taken in the next few days – some regional councilors of Campania (centre-right and independent) have decided to appeal to the administrative judiciary to request the cancellation of the session of the Regional Council during which the green light was given – by majority – to De Luca to run for the third once at the helm of Campania.
As a matter of law, the appellants contest “the clear violation and false application of the law regarding the internal regulations of the Campania Regional Council, as well as of articles 3 and 97 of the Constitution”. Fulvio Martusciello, regional coordinator of Forza Italia, intervenes after the note from the center-right exponents to specify that «on the third mandate the line will be dictated by the government in the session of 7 January, in agreement with the national leaders». «The TAR – he adds – does not have jurisdiction over the legitimacy of the law relating to the third mandate, but only over the procedures followed. It is important – Martusciello continues – to distinguish between the two areas: the technical-legal one of the procedures and the political one, which will be addressed in the government”.
Martusciello is one of the three center-right exponents who have given their availability to run for office. With him, who represents FI, the deputy foreign minister, Edmondo Cirielli, representing FdI, and the parliamentarian of the League, Gianpiero Zinzi. The presentation of the appeal to request the cancellation of the Regional Council session was proposed by the group leader of the League, Severino Nappi and shared by all the centre-right councilors: Carmela Rescigno, Aurelio Tommasetti, Antonella Piccerillo, Alfonso Piscitelli, Maria Muscarà, Cosimo Amente , Raffaele Maria Pisacane, Stefano Caldoro, Nunzio Carpentieri, Francesco Cascone, Livio Petitto and Massimo Grimaldi. At the moment the governor of Campania does not respond to this latest initiative, determined to continue on his own path because – he says – he must complete the activities started for Campania. A decision that also created embarrassment in his party, the Democratic Party, which has always been against it. In short, the third mandate is first and foremost a political question both in the centre-left and in the centre-right and which is intertwined with a question of appeals and the timing of justice.
The government’s decision to appeal against the Campania law which essentially gives the green light to De Luca could remove the chestnuts from the fire for Elly Schlein, secretary of the Democratic Party, who has repeatedly reiterated that she does not want to run for Palazzo Santa Lucia for the third time the former mayor of Salerno. But will the Government’s decision to lodge an appeal definitively close the game? Fulvio Martusciello says that the Government «will challenge the law on the third mandate, but the Constitutional Court will hardly be able to decide before the regional elections. This means that Vincenzo De Luca will be eligible to run, with the real risk that, after a few months, those elected on his lists could be declared forfeited.” A game that promises to be complicated and perhaps the decision to request the cancellation of the council meeting is aimed at closing it sooner. The reasoning is this: if the administrative justice pronounces a yes for the cancellation of the session, the law passed by Campania, the law on the third mandate, would have to be brought back to the chamber and voted on again. And then would there be time to do it? The Democratic Party without De Luca as a candidate would then be ready to make broad-based hypotheses with the M5s, also in view of the next policies. The name of the gubernatorial candidate would be that of Roberto Fico, thus replicating a scheme that has already led Gaetano Manfredi to victory in the Municipality of Naples.