I think the time has come to start a discussion about the meaning of elected positions. All of them, without exception. From a Deputy in Parliament to a regional councillor. Anyone who is elected has to do the job that he was elected to do. He has to perform his role FULL TIME until the end of the term of office. If a law is missing, then it has to be brought in. This goes for the deputy, the senator, the governor, the town councillor and the euro-parliamentarian. If you put yourself forward as a candidate to be a euro-parliamentarian like de Magistris you cannot put yourself forward as a candidate to be the mayor of Naples. If you have been elected (which is one way of putting it) as a deputy like Fassino, you cannot put yourself forward as a candidate to be mayor of Turin. If you are a regional councillor you cannot become a deputy in parliament, perhaps to not end up in prison. It’s a massive way of taking the voters for a ride. A game of armchairs that has nothing to do with the will expressed by the citizens. If I elect you to be a parliamentarian, that’s what you have to do. No one authorises you to abandon your place of work as an extremely well paid employee. When your term of office finishes, then you can offer yourself as a candidate. Before that, you have to carry out the work assigned to you keeping people informed on the details of the objectives achieved. Politicians are newbie Tarzans, they swing from branch to branch, from one position to another. They don’t have a job to do but a “position” that they can dispose of at their pleasure without answering to anyone.
A similar discussion can be done for institutional positions. Anyone who becomes a Minister has to resign from every job in the party. A Minister is “super partes” and answers to the Nation. He is either a Minister or the leader of a party. And this is valid even for the President of the Lower House. The Ministries have become separate party headquarters in Rome. Places where the key party figures meet up , discuss election strategy, a souk of votes with the relevant consultants going round the corridors. They could put up the banner of the Minister’s party on the roof and nothing would change. A party secretary as Minister? If the Minister (and party secretary) Boss(ol)i has to put forward a law, to whom does he answer? To the Lega or to Italy?
There are two/three thousand people in Parliament, the regions, provinces, towns and the EU who do their own thing. They pass from one position to another, they answer to their own personal logic or that of the party and not that of the State. “Today here, tomorrow there, I go and I live like that, without a member, tomorrow where I will be, here and there, I love liberty and no one will ever take it away from me", as Patty Pravo sang. Now’s the time to take this liberty away from her, this liberty that no one has ever given her. They will never give up (but is it in their interests?). Neither will we.