{"id":608,"date":"2013-08-03T12:00:01","date_gmt":"2013-08-03T10:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/?p=608"},"modified":"2014-03-12T12:21:37","modified_gmt":"2014-03-12T11:21:37","slug":"sicilys-first-openly-gay-governor-wins-support-with-anti-mafia-crusade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/?p=608","title":{"rendered":"Sicily\u2019s first openly gay governor wins support with anti-mafia crusade"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Anthony Faiola \/\u00a0Stefano Pitrelli contributed to this report<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/h1>\n

PALERMO, Italy \u2014 Of the last two men to sit in Sicily\u2019s palatial governor\u2019s office, one is up on criminal charges and the other is doing hard time. Enter their successor, Rosario Crocetta \u2014 the unlikeliest politician ever to govern Cosa Nostra country.<\/span><\/h1>\n

Back when he was mayor of a coastal town plagued by mob violence, Crocetta took on the dons, combating the ingrained practice of pizzo, or forced protection payments, while helping put hundreds of gangsters behind bars. His anti-mafia revolution led crime boss Daniele Emmanuello to call for his assassination, with police subsequently arresting a series of mobsters for plots against his life.<\/p>\n

Since winning the governor\u2019s job nine months ago, Crocetta has taken his crusade island-wide, kicking a hornet\u2019s nest as he strengthens anti-mafia laws and takes aim at the cronyism, waste and corruption that turned Sicily\u2019s treasury into the gift that kept giving. But to get this far, the 62-year-old former Communist with a penchant for sea-blue spectacles first had to tackle another powerful adversary: masculine stereotypes in Italy\u2019s macho south.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m homosexual, which I call a gift from God, and no, I didn\u2019t hide it one bit!\u201d he said, dangling a lit Marlboro and rearing his head back in a raucous laugh. Talking about his successful campaign for governor, he said, \u201cthe fact that I\u2019m here is almost inconceivable. Even I\u2019m surprised.\u201d<\/p>\n

Across Europe<\/a>, openly gay politicians are cracking the pink ceiling as never before, winning in recent years the prime minister\u2019s jobs in Belgium and Iceland and holding the high post of foreign minister in Germany, the region\u2019s powerhouse. Even in Italy \u2014 the only major nation in Western Europe without any form of legal recognition for same-sex couples \u2014 a gay candidate, Nichi Vendola, won the governorship of Apulia, in the Italian south, seven years ago. Despite still deep resistance in Italy to gay-rights laws, Vendola easily won reelection and is now a national kingmaker on the Italian left.<\/p>\n

And yet Crocetta\u2019s win in Sicily \u2014 a conservative bastion of the Catholic Church, machismo and the mafia \u2014 has left even Italian gay rights advocates flabbergasted, upending conventional perceptions of Italy\u2019s south as less socially progressive than the more prosperous north. In fact, when measured by the number of openly gay regional presidents (the position officially held by Crocetta, which is roughly equivalent to that of a U.S. state governor), the south is ahead of the north by a score of 2 to 0.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving Crocetta in Sicily is like having an openly gay man elected governor in Alabama,\u201d said Ivan Scalfarotto, a member of the national parliament and a Milan-based gay rights advocate. \u201cBut the most telling point is that his sexuality became a small detail for voters. This was about what he had done\u201d against the mafia.<\/p>\n

In Sicily, Crocetta\u2019s sexuality has courted less controversy than other aspects of his political persona. His harshest critics call him a grandstanding populist with a flair for the dramatic who will stop at nothing to score political points. Decorum is also not a quality he seems to highly prize. Last month, he showed up at a World War II commemoration ceremony more than an hour late, then piqued the ire of the visiting U.S. dignitaries by saying Allied forces had destroyed his family home. He was playing to his leftist base, his opponents say, when he temporarily suspended construction of a U.S. military satellite dish citing a possible health risk.<\/p>\n

Nello Musumeci, the right-wing opponent he beat in November, insists Crocetta is a flash in the pan who won because Italy\u2019seconomic crisis<\/a>\u00a0and a series of corruption scandals had soured voters on traditional politicians.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt any other time, he would have been seen as an alien in Sicily, not a revolutionary,\u201d groused Musumeci.<\/p>\n

To that, Crocetta simply shrugs, offering his own interpretation of victory. By choosing him, Sicilians proved themselves ready to embrace a \u201cradical\u201d solution to the age-old scourge of the island\u2019s crime families.<\/p>\n

\u201cFreedom is about the moment you stand up and rebel,\u201d Crocetta said. \u201cSicily has stood up and is on its feet. What is happening here? A cultural revolution. I don\u2019t know if we\u2019ll succeed, but it\u2019s about time we tried.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Married to Sicily\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Armed with a cabinet that is dominated by women and includes ethnic and sexual minorities, Crocetta has canceled tainted state contracts, appointed an anti-mafia judge to head a major public procurement department and pushed a law to aid witnesses to mafia crimes. He has also opened channels of communication with the national prosecutors office in Palermo that officials there say have led to the opening of 20 probes.<\/p>\n

He has a 24-hour security detail, and a strategy for protection that involves frequently changing sleeping arrangements. His largest task so far, he said, has been unraveling a maze of millions of euros in misspent funds and bad state deals left by his predecessors.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody wants me,\u201d he said, comically complaining in his office when an aide slips a note informing him of yet another phone call.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, not her,\u201d he said with a grimace when informed who is on the line. \u201cShe\u2019s such a neurotic, and her son is practically gay.\u201d<\/p>\n

In looks and manner, think Harvey Fierstein, if Harvey Fierstein were playing the part of an anti-mafia Sicilian governor and going for the Oscar. His sexuality rarely became a dominant issue during his governor\u2019s campaign, but it was an undercurrent.<\/p>\n

A right-wing paper routinely referred to him as \u201cthe gay candidate for governor.\u201d His political opponents, Crocetta said, secretly distributed doctored photos of him supposedly engaged in sex acts. At one point, he made national headlines when he pledged to abstain from sex and \u201cmarry Sicily\u201d if elected to the post. He described the comment \u2014 taken literally across Italy \u2014 as a sarcastic response to a journalist too interested in his private life.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the biggest idiocy I\u2019ve ever heard in my life,\u201d Crocetta said of the national obsession with his \u201cchastity vow.\u201d \u201cOf course I didn\u2019t mean it. Well, at least the part about not having sex. I am married to Sicily.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like President Obama on the issue of race, Crocetta is caught in the vortex between those who see him as too gay and those who see him as not gay enough. He authorized the use of public funding for this year\u2019s Gay Pride festival in Palermo, and became the first Sicilian governor ever to attend it. But he has not put gay-rights laws toward the top of his agenda. He said he personally supports gay marriage, but \u201cSicily is not ready for all this.\u201d<\/p>\n

A personal fight<\/strong><\/p>\n

Crocetta, the son of a poor tradesman and a seamstress mother, said his vendetta against the mafia took shape decades ago. While working at a Sicilian petrochemical plant, he said he discovered the depth of the mafia\u2019s infiltration in local business. In 1990, he was outraged by a mafia hit on an arcade in his home town of Gela that left eight boys dead. Two years later, the town government was dissolved by national authorities for being hopelessly in the pocket of organized crime.<\/p>\n

In 2002, he ran for mayor of Gela and was declared the winner a year later due to electoral fraud. He set up a program to aid businesses coerced into making regular protection payments to the mafia. After reelection in 2005 and a stint as a member of\u00a0the European Parliament<\/a>, he ran for governor last year on what he calls a single platform: \u201cAgainst the mafia.\u201d<\/p>\n

His fight, he said, has taken its toll. In 2010, he said he had to seek therapy after his mother died. She had stopped eating after hearing talk of a mob plot against his life on the news. \u201cShe died 40 days later,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

His opponents say the image Crocetta presents of himself may be too good to be true. But if his first few months as governor are any indication, anti-mafia prosecutors say he is at least on the right track.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is giving us a constant flow of information, asking his ministers to cooperate with us, and personally calling and coming to see me himself,\u201d said Leonardo Agueci, the deputy chief prosecutor in Palermo. \u201cI can\u2019t say yet where this is all going, but I can say this is like nothing we\u2019ve seen before from a [Sicilian] governor.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Anthony Faiola \/\u00a0Stefano Pitrelli contributed to this report PALERMO, Italy \u2014 Of the last two men to sit in Sicily\u2019s palatial governor\u2019s office, one is up on criminal charges and the other is doing hard time. Enter their successor, Rosario Crocetta \u2014 the unlikeliest politician ever to govern Cosa Nostra country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[49,22,50],"class_list":["post-608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-washpost","tag-crimine-organizzato","tag-storie-di-copertina","tag-politica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=608"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":728,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions\/728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stefanopitrelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}