Giuseppe Farris, lawyer, 56 years old, is running for mayor of Cagliari. «I have chosen to deal with the next municipal elections by promoting a Civic Movement that gathers the best skills of the city and looks, first of all, towards that non-political class which, until now, has decided to be disinterested in public affairs».
The announcement comes with a video of about 10 minutes. Farris is on the San Michele hill. It starts from afar, from the roots of Cagliari's history, when the city was like «a queen on the Gulf: the privileged access point for an island that had around a million inhabitants and 20,000 nuraghi», to arrive at the present day: « A city with such deep and solid roots", he attacks, "cannot fail to have its own identity, its own character, its own personality. But for over a decade this identity has been systematically violated by successive municipal administrations, both left and right." He doesn't mention them, but both Massimo Zedda and the current mayor Paolo Truzzu are in his sights. Who are compared with mayors who, in his view, have improved Cagliari: the reference is to Roberto dal Cortivo and Mariano Delogu.
Farris reviews what he considers the mistakes and flaws of recent administrations. There are endless construction sites, set up to spend available money, which bring traders to their knees who are still forced to pay municipal taxes. He also puts the metro project in via Roma under attack, "a steel monster on eight-metre wide tracks". There is also criticism of the "obsession" with experimenting with sustainable mobility, with cycle paths leading the way, which in his opinion has turned into "unsustainable. The result could only be one: the traffic, sparse and orderly, to which we were accustomed, has become chaotic, with cars driven by motorists who, like hamsters on a wheel, turn around desperately looking for a parking space. They have lengthened journey times, increased pollution and kept customers away from shops."
In his entry into the field, Farris speaks of "unprecedented urban hooliganism" in the cases of " Piazza Garibaldi and Piazza Gramsci, where, instead of taking care of the existing, they modified the places with cheap furnishings identical to those in many cities".
The candidate lawyer announces a vast campaign to listen to citizens, which will affect the center as well as the suburbs: to intercept problems and promise answers in the first 100 days of government, in the event of election.
The slogan is: «Cagliari, for passion, not for profession». To launch a return to politics, after a long period of distancing from the scene. Farris was Personnel Councilor at Palazzo Bacaredda, when Emilio Floris was mayor. So far he is the only one to have made his candidacy official. Massimo Zedda, on the other hand, made himself available to his team. The vote for the municipal elections should be approximately eight months away. But the electoral campaign has already started.
Enrico Fresu