Calabria, Occhiuto: I will stand again to continue the work done

"I have given a lot" for Calabria and "I have also put my health at risk over these four years and if I anticipate the elections it is to continue the work I am doing. On waste management, on airports, or on reclamation consortia, which used to be 11 and is now just one. The opposition then had four years to build an alternative. If in all this time they have not found a leader to challenge me, they have only themselves to blame'. This is how Roberto Occhiuto, president of the Calabria Region, talks in an interview with La Stampa about his surprise resignation at the end of July and the elections to be held on 5 and 6 October.

"It will not be a vote against the magistracy, I am not looking for a victory against the pm," he assures. The fact, he says, is that 'we need strong leadership here, otherwise nothing will move, that's why I resigned. Not because of the warning, but because of the effect it had. The classic 'signature fear' had grown in the administrative machine and the thought had crept in that I was destined to end up like the other regional presidents who had been investigated before me, archived both legally and politically. They saw me as a zombie, a crippled president. I could no longer resolve issues that in other times I would have closed in three days'. "I trust that I will be archived in the coming months, even though I know that the times of justice are not those of politics. However, a victory would give me the impetus to convince and revive the most rebellious leaders, those who think my experience is over and have pulled the oars in the boat,' Occhiuto concludes.