In retrospect, sound the confessions as grotesque mockery, even for the Standards of Italian politics. As Marcello De Vito candidate three years ago for the Roman Council, he said in his election spot: “We now have the opportunity to work with the waste and the corruption, of which the Left and the right over the years have lived on the hump of the citizens of Rome.”

With “we” refers to the Cinque point, and his party. De Vito has always been considered as a “ortodosso” of the system-critical movement, as a follower, therefore, is the indomitable wing, dedicated a new culture of honesty and transparency. For the Five stars he had decided, said De Vito, because he had a little daughter, and he wanted to leave a better world.

Now he sits in prison. The Carabinieri arrived in the early Morning, as the President of the Rome municipal Council, 44 years old, a lawyer by profession, was still at home. Offices were searched, of his and other three people arrested. With all the turmoil and scandals, the embracing of the young party: Never before has one of their Expo had to duck to jail.

The public Prosecutor’s office accuses De Vito, he had let developers bribe, allegedly with hundreds of thousands of euros. De Vito saw to it that their businesses have benefited. He sat in the center of Power, closely connected with everything and everyone. In the urban hierarchy, only the mayor, a party colleague, Virginia Raggi, higher than the Chairman of the local Council. They apparently knew nothing of De Vito’s double.

The turn to the stadium

Particularly active, he was talked about a lot and often suspended the construction project of a new football stadium for the city club AS Roma. Earlier, the Cinque were always against it. Since they are in Power, you are in for the construction. De Vito, among other things, the entrepreneur Luca Parnasi “services,” as the investigators call it. Parnasi is part of the large piece of Land at Tor di Valle in the South of the city, where the stadium one day. His sleazy services De Vito offered supposedly for the construction of a hotel in Trastevere and for the appreciation of the Mercati Generali, Rome’s abandoned a large market.

The prosecution called their Operation “astronomical conjunction”, and this Codename from with the stars was only the political positioning of De Vito’s, but also the contents of a wiretapped phone conversation between a politician and a lawyer, and his allies. It took place only recently and was of the ideal constellation for the two of them. “Marcello,” said the lawyer, “we need to take advantage of this Situation, I believe, remain with us for two years.”

rival and Compagnon

In two years will be elected in Rome, so the government will not crash before. The left Opposition urges Raggi now to resign, but the mayor is combative. De Vito was the number two in the Campidoglio, the city hall, on Capitol hill. However, within the party the two were rivals. De Vito would yourself like to become mayor, he had tried 2013. Nevertheless, the affair remains to Raggi hang. It feeds the resentment of many of the Romans over their disastrous administration in the past three years.

And because everything that happens in Rome, radiates into the country, meets the case, the national party leadership. Luigi Di Maio, Vice-Premier and the Capo politico of the Five star, wrote a long Post on Facebook, barely, for De Vito had been arrested. “What can we learn there, is not just serious, but a shameful and morally reprehensible,” wrote Di Maio. He had excluded De Vito from the party, and carry full responsibility for that. “De Vito can defend and be in court, but he will do so far away from the Cinque point.”

fall of the star

So far, the desire to Di Maios. But more likely is that the voters do not see the corruption affair as proof that the Cinque point in the end are better than the other parties-not the clean, honest.

This is also reflected in the surveys: Recently, the social Democrats, who had been declared dead, suddenly back in front of the Five stars. Only just, but not spectacular. A year ago, the Cinque were still almost twice as strong as the Partito Democratico. The Power, it seems, gets to you.

(Tages-Anzeiger)

Created: 20.03.2019, 23:16 PM