Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi with undersecretary Nicola Cosentino
Anthony M. Quattrone
Carlo Alemi, the president of the Court of Naples, stated, in an interview published in the Naples edition of the national paper La Repubblica on 9 November 2009, that he would prefer that political parties do not put forward as candidates for public offices anyone who was officially under investigation or suspected of having committed a crime. Gianfranco Fini, President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, and co-founder with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of the center-right party, Popolo della Libertà (PdL), stated in an interview with journalist Fabio Fazio, broadcast on 8 November 2009 on Italian national television, that politics will take a big step forward when candidates who have many votes based on “non transparent powers” are excluded from the electoral process.
Approximately 24 hours after the statements made by judge Alemi and president Fini, a prosecutor in Naples, Raffaele Piccirillo, issued an arrest warrant against under secretary for the economy, Nicola Cosentino. The warrant has been sent to the office of president Fini because Cosentino is currently a member of the Chamber of Deputies, and, as such, cannot be arrested without the specific authorization by Parliament. It is not know if the warrant calls for custody in jail, home arrest, or another restrictive measure of a geographical type (limiting his ability to travel outside of a specific geographic area). The warrant should be arriving at Fini’s desk on Tuesday, 10 November 2009.
Cosentino, who is the regional coordinator of the PdL party in Campania, is accused of assisting a Neapolitan mafia clan, the Casalesi, as an external associate, through his political offices.
The Corriere della Sera on line reports, on 9 November 2009, that Cosentino has been accused by a police informant of having common interests with the Casalesi with respect to the construction of an incinerator in the town of Santa Maria la Fossa, in the province of Caserta, about 40 kilometers north of Naples. According to the Corriere, Cosentino has always denied any wrongdoing, explaining that he was always against the construction of the incinerator.
The news of the arrest warrant against Cosentino coincides with the escalation of an internal feud in the PdL between Berlusconi and Fini loyalists over political strategies and the relationship with Umberto Bossi’s Northern League. Berlusconi’s Forza Italia moderate conservative party and Fini’s Alleanza Nazionale conservative party became a federation in February 2008, and finally merged into the PdL party in March 2009. Fini loyalists have expressed concern over claims made by Bossi, and apparently supported by Berlusconi, that the Northern League should nominate candidates for the center right coalition for the president of the Piedmont and Veneto regions in the upcoming elections in 2010.
During the latest elections in Campania in 2008, for the renewal of Parliament, the coalition led by the PdL obtained over 51 percent of the vote. The current president of the Campania Region is Antonio Bassolino, a former communist and founder of the Italian Democratic Party. According to the latest polls, Bassolino’s favorability ratings are below 20 percent. Polls performed prior to the latest news regarding Cosentino’s possible arrest gave the center left coalition at over 50 percent in Campania.
