A sudden, sensational, and unexpected announcement. Calabria Regional President Roberto Occhiuto is resigning and seeking re-election. "In a few weeks, it will be the Calabrians who decide the future of Calabria, not others," he explains in a video posted on his social media. The decision is linked to the investigation by the Catanzaro Prosecutor's Office into his corruption charges, but his resignation is driven by attempts to block ongoing construction projects in the region.
"Who would want to stop the judiciary? No," he says, "I have nothing against the judiciary. I'm not changing my mind: I've always said that in a complex region like Calabria, magistrates must do their job calmly. On the other hand, I've clarified everything; I have nothing to fear from the judicial investigation." The governor, in fact, as he had requested immediately after receiving the notice of extension of the investigation, was questioned by prosecutors last week. He emerged from the meeting "satisfied and very relieved." "I think I've clarified everything and I'm confident the case will be closed very quickly," he told reporters as he left the prosecutor's office.
Occhiuto's anger, therefore, is not with the prosecutors but with "all these second-rate politicians, who have never achieved anything for Calabria in their political careers in so many years. I'm angry with these haters, with these people angry with life, who root for Calabria's failure, who are almost happy when Calabria is spoken ill of. I'm angry with those who use the judicial investigation as a cudgel to weaken or politically assassinate the regional president: it won't be like that."
So resign and elect, to avoid being "killed" politically by remaining mired in stalemate. However, while convinced that "one shouldn't resign because of a notice of investigation," Occhiuto explains that he must deal with his administration, where now "no one takes responsibility for signing anything, everyone thinks this experience is like the previous ones." He recalls how "over the last 30 years in Calabria, in the last year or year and a half of the legislature, presidents would be involved in a judicial investigation, then perhaps they were shelved, it would all come to nothing, but they were politically decapitated, and the legislature would be brought to a halt. In fact, for a year, that was all anyone talked about."
And this, he says confidently, "Calabria cannot allow" because the region "has embarked on a journey that is finally making it a region no longer on its knees compared to other Italian regions." The announcement of his resignations, among other things, comes on the eve of the three-day conference on the South, which from tomorrow to Sunday will bring together the elite of Forza Italia in Reggio Calabria, including the national secretary and deputy prime minister and foreign minister Antonio Tajani, ministers, undersecretaries, and Forza Italia parliamentarians. A convention that will inevitably now be enriched with further content.
(Unioneonline)