Di Battista: ‘They’ve removed a tumour, now I have to undergo treatment’
The former M5S MP: ‘Will I stand for election? Right now, my priority is to get better’
Alessandro Di Battista returns via video link to the programme *Di Martedì* on La 7 and talks about his illness and the “unforeseeable event” that turned his life: “In Cuba, I started to feel unwell due to cerebral oedema caused by a tumour that was diagnosed,” explained the former MP, “they removed almost all of the tumour. And now I’ll be undergoing treatment, hoping it works. I’m one of those Italian citizens who ask, ‘Why me?’” And he added: “This 21st-century plague has one merit: it’s democratic,” said the activist. “I’m not one of those who say, ‘I’ll pull through’; I have to undergo treatment and maintain a positive attitude. It’s the doctors who mustn’t give up.’ Now ‘I’m being looked after very well; in Cuba they performed a highly sophisticated operation on me using technology that was used here 30 years ago,’ he says. ‘And yet the neurosurgeon saved my life. Yesterday, this doctor wrote to me saying they are unable to sterilise equipment due to a power cut.’ This brings us to the plight of the Cuban people, which he had already highlighted this morning on his Substack channel: ‘The US continues to behave like the mafia and to strangle the Cuban people. The situation in Havana is dire. In Italia, they show us images of Cuban cities littered with rubbish, without explaining who is responsible for the conditions in which Cubans live.”
He also touched on the Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, who, Di Battista replies, ‘treated me personally well during the most difficult times, as did the whole government’.
Then a look to the future, in which he now rules out standing as a candidate himself: ‘Me, the Vannacci of the centre-left? The broad coalition is weak,’ Dibba begins, before taking a dig at the PD: ‘How does it expect to win the elections when it effectively holds the same position on Ukraine as Meloni? I don’t know; at the moment, I don’t see the broad coalition as a good prospect.’ Will I stand as a candidate? ‘We, through the “Schierarsi” association, had taken the right steps to reach this election with at least the chance to have a say; but life is unpredictable, and now my priority is to look after my health.’
