First step forward to allow Vincenzo De Luca to run for the third term in a row. The First Permanent Institutional Affairs Commission has in fact voted in favor of the third presidential mandate, as well as the 2.5% threshold for the lists for the next regional elections scheduled for 2025.
Maria Luigia Iodice, regional councilor of the ‘Italian Socialist Party, Free Campania, Noi di Centro, Noi Campani’ group, retraced yesterday’s day (November 2): “It was a long but important and productive day. In Prima Permanent Institutional Affairs Commission we voted in favor of the 2.5% threshold for the lists for the next regional elections scheduled for 2025. In the afternoon we met again and in the evening we voted yes to the third presidential term”.
Important votes which will now, in the meeting on Tuesday 5 November, be examined by the Regional Council. It is worth remembering that the law provides for a three-term stop for regional governors but until now the Campania Region had not implemented this directive. With the favorable vote of the Campania Region, the law would be implemented but it is not retroactive and would therefore come into force starting from 2024 and, consequently, it is as if De Luca, according to the law, was in the first of the two consecutive terms envisaged by the norm. The question on the application of the rule is based on the fact that the Regions are responsible for self-legislating for matters of their own interest and therefore the rule on the limit to two consecutive mandates, which is part of a framework law, according to many is only a directive that must be implemented by the Regions and not a law to be applied directly. For this reason, the Regions are ready to apply the two-term limit only after having implemented the directive and not in the past. The issue does not only concern De Luca and Campania but also Michele Emiliano, governor of Puglia, also with his second mandate expiring and Luca Zaia, president of Veneto, who is actually in his third mandate given that the regional council applied the directive in 2012 , highlighting that the electoral law did not apply retroactively.
As regards Campania, the decisions taken in the Commission will be examined by the Regional Council in the meeting on Tuesday 5 November.
It should be noted that the representatives of the Democratic Party voted to make De Luca’s third mandate, although the national leaders of the Democratic Party, led by secretary Elly Schlein, have repeatedly reiterated that for the Democratic Party the mandates should no longer be of two, giving rise to a sort of duel on the third term issue with De Luca.
The reactions
The regional coordinator of Forza Italia Fulvio Martusciello also spoke on the matter: “Schlein’s battle is the same as what I did in 2022, when I completely changed the ruling class of Campania. It took courage but history proved us right. Even back then there were widespread investigations and unpresentability, even then there was a stubborn preservation of power And it is no coincidence that the negative protagonists of that season who we put in the corner then found themselves with De Luca right we tell the secretary of the Democratic Party not to be afraid. Arrogance can be defeated with courage.”
The position taken by Gianpiero Zinzi, regional coordinator of the League, is even harsher: “The irreparable rift in recent hours between the Democratic Party and De Luca actually seems like a bluff. The Campania Democratic Party will vote for the third mandate and will bend to a barrier threshold that is low enough to protect De Luca’s masterminds.
Criticism also from Fratelli d’Italia deputy Marco Cerreto: “The Campania Democratic Party, despite Schlein’s opposition, voted in the Commission in favor of the third mandate for De Luca, disavowing the party’s national line. It is clear that Schlein has not more control of the party. In Campania the issue is even more serious in light of recent news. It is not the first time that they have used the double territorial oven practiced according to interests. Bonaccini had been among the staunchest supporters of the differentiated autonomy, followed precisely by De Luca who supported it with council and council resolutions, and today they are among the proudest supporters of the truncated reform, that is, the one made by them thanks to which they continue to pass the buck depending on whether whether or not it is in the majority of the government or of the Region. This two-headed leadership of the Democratic Party will be rejected by the citizens of Campania at the polls who will be able to choose whether to condemn the Region to being increasingly last in everything, or to return to being protagonists of a great redemption by choosing to take back the future. “.
