Cuffaro case, the former president of the Sicilian Region resigns as secretary of the DC

'This morning I resigned, in the hands of the party president, Renato Grassi, and the national organisational secretary, Pippo Enea, my resignation as national secretary of the Christian Democracy'. This was written in a note by Totò Cuffaro, who in recent days has been under investigation by the Palermo Public Prosecutor's Office, which hasrequested his house arrest. 'I thank,' he adds, 'those who have shared with me a path of commitment and service to the party. The president has convened a National Council meeting for 20 November, which will be called to examine and accept my irrevocable resignation and to define the subsequent decisions'.

The investigation by the Palermo Public Prosecutor's Office, which has called for the arrest of the former Sicilian governor for corruption and bid-rigging, has revealed, among other things, that despite years of public statements to the contrary, Totò Cuffaro was planning to run again for the presidency of the Region. In describing the precautions taken to 'armour' his communications, the magistrates pointed out that Cuffaro sometimes used his wife's telephone number and that of another collaborator, Antonio Abbonato. The caution in the former governor's communications is addressed in several chapters of the investigation. And to protect himself from the investigators' moves, Cuffaro is said to have established relations with a colonel of the Arma, Stefano Palminteri, who was ready to reveal confidential information on ongoing investigations.

The Strait Bridge also cropped up in the investigation. This is a chapter of the investigation full of omissions dedicated to the interests aroused by the work. But at the heart of the investigation is healthcare. The summits of the health companies being meticulously divided up. 'We have Enna, Palermo and Siracusa,' said Cuffaro, not knowing that he was being intercepted by the Palermo Public Prosecutor's Office. Words that, according to the prosecutors, demonstrate 'influence and interference in the strategic management of the posts of greatest responsibility in the regional health world'.

The magistrates, in the request for precautionary measure, stress that the reasons for such interest 'are of immediate intuition and are to be found in the enormous amount of economic resources, and not only, that circulate in this sector, on the regulation, management and standardisation of which, moreover, the competence is regional'. According to the investigations, the ex-governor's plan was to take over one third of the top positions in the Sicilian public health agencies, specifically those of Palermo, Enna and Syracuse. Putting the 'right' men in the right place would have allowed, according to the investigators, the former governor to condition contracts and rig competitions, all to consolidate his power.