Puglia, votes bought for 50 euro. Pd councillor Maurodinoia resigns. Conte: there are no more conditions for primaries in Bari

According to the indictment accepted by the gip, the investigation revealed a 'proven illicit agreement' whose goal was the re-election of the mayor and two municipal councillors (who are not the recipients of any measures executed today). On the occasion of both elections, the network set up directed the voting preferences of numerous voters, through the payment of money and other benefits to them. In particular, the activities, coordinated by the Public Prosecutor's Office of Bari, have shown that the head of a well-known political movement in the area, addressee of today's measure of house arrest, through an association that managed to channel preferences, illicitly acquired votes in the conduct of consultations in the municipality of Triggiano in 2021.

Preferences would also be conditioned in exchange for EUR 50 per vote, and those who accepted the deal would have to hand over copies of their identity documents and ballot papers for an accurate section-by-section vote count. The verification was carried out during the counting operations, where various 'wingmen' of the organisers - who were permanently stationed near the sections assigned to them - checked whether people had actually gone to the polling station and, at the count, checked the actual correspondence of the 'purchased' votes. Significant was what was found by the Carabinieri on the evening of 6 October 2021, in a rubbish collection street bin in the San Giorgio district of Bari; fragments of photocopies of identity documents, tax codes of citizens from Triggiano, a large number of facsimiles of ballot papers and election propaganda leaflets.

"The dynamics inherent to electoral unlawfulness" in Bari find "actual confirmation in the investigations of other criminal proceedings concerning different electoral rounds and in different territories (Bari, Ceglie del Campo, Grumo Appula), confirming the existence of a clientelistic political system and of an organisational machine that is activated with unlawful modalities in every electoral competition". This is a passage from the order signed by the gip Paola Angela De Santis, which today led to the execution of ten precautionary measures in the Barese region for electoral corruption. In the order, excerpts of the charges of the Bari Public Prosecutor's Office are reported. According to the prosecutors, there is 'a system devised by Sandro Cataldo', husband of the resigned regional councillor Anita Maurodinoia, who is under investigation, 'to control the actual exercise of the vote in favour of his political party' Sud al Centro and 'of his wife Anita Maurodinoia, in particular through voting formulas to be imposed on voters'.

"With respect to bargain voting, it is an issue that does not surprise me. First, during the last elections, I made detailed complaints, I made three. Two of those were for people who voted for me, for lists linked to my name'. This was said by the mayor of Bari, Antonio Decaro, on the sidelines of the Provincial Committee for Order and Security, referring to the new investigation into vote rigging that this morning led to the arrest of the husband of the regional councillor for Transport, Anita Maurodinoia, (PD). 'Pollution of the vote,' Decaro added, 'corruption, vote buying are there and they are things we must all watch out for. 'As I have said many times,' he said, 'the guard level must be raised, the antibodies must be increased, all the political forces must do this, starting with those who administer. On this new investigation, I am waiting to understand the evolution of the investigations and the arrests this morning."

"I have never said that Bari is a safe city, I have always said that Bari has four criminal organisations with 14 branches. With 14 criminal groups I cannot say that the city is safe,' added Decaro, on the sidelines of the provincial Committee for Order and Security. 'However, the city has changed,' he explained, 'twenty years ago you couldn't enter the old city'. Decaro commented that 'criminal groups, when they are decimated, create problems because there are members of the clans who try to take the place of those who are no longer there, or those who have been brought to justice, and who tend to occupy spaces that are left vacant by other clans, in particular the drug dealing squares'.

'I have been reassured by the fact that the judiciary and the forces of law and order are strongly committed, there is also a strengthening of control over the territory. But I am concerned by the manner of the ambush (on the prejudicial suspect Raffaele Capriati, ed.), by the criminal depth of the person who was killed, and by the possibility that there may be reactions, as has often happened in the city,' Decaro concluded.