The PD trembles. At least in Campania. And within the party, the first discontent is beginning to emerge towards a national leadership that has not at all overseen the composition of the lists. Someone will have to start taking some responsibility, they say. The administrations led by the Democrats are falling one after another like dominoes: the municipalities of Castellammare di Stabia, Torre Annunziata, Pagani, and Sarno have already been dissolved. And the shadow of commissioners is beginning to hover over Portici, San Giuseppe Vesuviano, and Ercolano, cities where voting took place just a month ago. All the fault of the at least inappropriate associations of some councilors and members of the red administrations.
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The most critical situation for the Democratic Party leadership is currently that of Ercolano. The new councilors Nancy Scognamiglio and Marco Cozzolino were captured at a dinner – whose images were relayed by Napoli Today – which was also attended by Natale Suarino, a multiple offender once linked to the Camorra clan Ascione-Papale. It should be noted, however, that in the meantime, Suarino completed his sentence in 2014 and the Florence Surveillance Court granted him criminal rehabilitation in 2022. His special surveillance ended in early 2018, with the Naples Court of Appeal rehabilitating him from the preventive measure for good conduct in February 2023.
RALLY
The affair embarrasses not only the local party section but also the national bigwigs. Two months ago, former Health Minister Roberto Speranza participated in an electoral event organized by the under-scrutiny PD duo. Kisses and hugs with Scognamiglio, before sitting at the speakers’ table with the two candidates to launch their campaign. In the end, with about a thousand votes each, both were elected. However, the pizza party to celebrate the victory was mischievous…
While the Anti-Mafia District Directorate began to move to investigate the links between politics and crime in the Municipality, self-suspensions have poured in within the PD. First from the two councilors – whom the mayor asked to move to the opposition – then from the city coordinator Antonello Cozzolino, brother of the councilor. The regional Democratic coordinator, Piero De Luca, announced that a commissioner will be appointed within a few days. Certainly, all this cannot be dismissed as a simple mishap given the involvement of many party bigwigs. On one side, Speranza himself, on the other, the son of the former governor in full function as regional coordinator.
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Not only that. Another name at the center of the PD crossfire is Sandro Ruotolo, Elly Schlein’s plenipotentiary in Campania. His name resurfaced after the dissolution of the Castellammare di Stabia administration, a municipality where he had been elected city councilor and from which he resigned in protest against Mayor Luigi Vicinanza, former director of L’Espresso. Vicinanza himself, after the government’s decision to dissolve his municipality for suspected mafia infiltration, struck back at the Democratic leadership: «I have suffered continuous personal attacks from the most justice-driven and sectarian faction of the PD led by Elly Schlein.» The reference seems directly aimed at Ruotolo, who in 2024 had worked on forming the coalition, then abandoned the ship (and the mayor) at the end of 2025, when things started to go badly.
But Ruotolo, despite the Castellammare mess, is ready to re-enter the field in Ercolano. Mayor Antonietta Garzia, in an attempt to prevent her administration from falling a month after the election, decided to establish a “pool for legality” (whose actual powers, at the moment, are far from clear). It will be composed precisely of the PD euro-mustache, along with former police chief Antonio Borrelli, former mayor of Ercolano Gaetano Daniele, and former deputy Paolo Siani, brother of the journalist killed by the Camorra. But the crisis management, in addition to the composition of the new administration, did not please a part of the majority: the list “FOR the People and the Community” refused the delegations, exiting the majority perimeter.
OPPOSITION
To denounce what has been dubbed the “left system,” Brothers of Italy announced a national demonstration on Thursday, July 23, in Castellammare di Stabia. For Giorgia Meloni’s party, «these are no longer isolated rotten apples but a widespread and pervasive system of relations with organized crime that subjugates a population of hundreds of thousands of honest citizens, greater than the number of inhabitants of Bologna.» Many party bigwigs will be in the square, including the group leaders in the Chamber and Senate, Galeazzo Bignami and Lucio Malan, the national organization head Giovanni Donzelli, Senator Sergio Rastrelli, member of the Anti-Mafia, and the regional FdI team, with Gennaro Sangiuliano, Raffaele Pisacane, regional coordinator Antonio Iannone, and provincial commissioner Marta Schifone.
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