"If Berlusconi were alive...", "Those who vote yes are antifascists", "My intercepted encounters": the Forza Italia convention for the referendum

From "if Berlusconi were alive, there wouldn't have been a match" to "those who vote yes are antifascists". Passing through the "intercepts" captured by the magistrates. The Sicilian elite of Forza Italia gathered this morning in Palermo at the convention that promotes the yes to the justice referendum scheduled for Sunday, March 22, and Monday, March 23.

Both the secretary Antonio Tajani and the vice president of the Chamber Giorgio Mulè connected from Rome. "We are fighting together a great battle for freedom with the justice referendum - says Tajani - This is not a reform against the judiciary, it is a colossal lie. The reform does not put judges under politics, those who claim so are telling a colossal lie. We are fundamentally opposed to the politicization of the judiciary." And further: "I will not be intimidated, and we will not be intimidated by those who say we will settle the accounts the day after the referendum vote, we will settle the accounts with the people,” he adds, responding from a distance to prosecutor Nicola Gratteri.

For Mulè, "we all have an extraordinary task, to recruit champions of freedom who embrace the reasons for the reform. In Palermo, you know perfectly well why this justice needs to be reformed: it needs to be reformed to break free from a fascist logic. Those who vote for this reform are antifascists. They try to contaminate the debate by telling lies, as Giuseppe Conte does - Mulè continues - who keeps saying nonsense when he claims that the reform saves the powerful. There is no danger, risk, or threat that could happen tomorrow... Gentlemen, send them to hell when they say that. The reform writes what is and not what could happen. And the Constitution is not a relic to be venerated, but it can be changed".

The Sicilian governor Renato Schifani brings up the founder of Forza Italia. "If Silvio Berlusconi had been alive, there wouldn't have been a match for the referendum - he states - He would have traveled across Sicily and Italy far and wide. This is a battle for legal civilization".

While the national deputy Tommaso Calderone evokes personal anecdotes: "Years ago they intercepted me on all my lines, in the rooms of my office and my secretariat; they intercepted me in cars, there was a bug even in a 500 parked in the garage that my father would occasionally start, spending money and with the judge signing pre-printed papers. And since they found nothing they installed a trojan: they entered my house and my bedroom, recording my tears and my joys, recording my intimate moments. And they still tell us that we don't need a third judge? Lies upon lies".

Also present was the magistrate Massimo Russo, former councilor in the government of Raffaele Lombardo. "The separation of careers - he says - is a story that comes from afar and does not even come from the right, it comes from the left and I have been pushed to put my face on it. I am used to putting my face on it and for this I pay a price, in fact I have already paid it but it doesn't matter, I do not give up my freedom and my culture and my thought. A strong institution like that of the judiciary - adds the prosecutor - cannot fear change, rather it should lead it. It leads it by bringing its contribution of experience and not opposing it as, unfortunately, the National Association of Magistrates has done by entering the political arena and seeking consent and, in this case, politicizing the judiciary. The Anm must not seek consent. The judiciary must exercise its role of absolute independence and autonomy within the law. Parliament is made up of those who are elected by the people. This is the cornerstone of our system and we must not shift it at all.