Bono: “He doesn’t have the requisites, the mayor will start the procedures for new elections.” The reactions: “It’s not time for hatred and spite”
IVREA
The center-right majority attacks the Council of Foreigners of the Municipality hard-nosed. It does so in a blatant way with a motion, signed by group leaders Anna Bono (Lega) and Maria Piras (mixed group). The current president Gabriella Colosso, a minority councilor of the Democratic Party, who, according to the statute, could not fill that role as she was born in Italy, ends up in the sights. The purpose of the motion is to commit the mayor and the junta to urgently initiate the procedure for the election of a new president.
«On the basis of the statute, the president of the consultation – they explain Anna Bono e Maria Piras – must be a foreign citizen or of foreign origin who has acquired Italian citizenship. Colossus does not meet the required requirements and it is necessary to remedy the embarrassing situation created in relation to foreign citizens of our community ». Not only that, the two majority exponents reproach the current presidency for not having yet sent to the city council the annual report on the initiatives implemented, on the problems that have emerged and on the prospects, programs and objectives.
The motion presented by the majority certainly does not meet the favor of the board of the council and of the associations that are part of it. Many have already expressed their solidarity with Colossus, stigmatizing the attitude of the two councilors who represent the majority in the consultation: “Instead of addressing the Council or its board, as it would have been right to do, they ignored us completely, addressing to the city council ».
The direct interest smiles and remembers how and why in March of last year she was elected as president. “Unfortunately, there was no one within the Council who felt ready to play the role of president – he explains Gabriella Colosso -. The risk was to blow up the Council with the risk of depriving foreigners of a useful tool. At that point I was a candidate and along with me was also Bono who is notoriously not a foreigner. I was elected while she immediately asked to be able to join the board by removing the post from one of the foreigners’ associations ». The solution of electing Colossus, in order not to blow up the Council, had been taken with the endorsement of the official of the Municipality present at that meeting. The same solution that had been taken with the first Consulta when Armando Michelizza was elected.
Colossus also recalls how from the beginning he had publicly stated that his post would be for the time. “There are people within the Council who are growing and who will soon be able to play the role of president – adds Colossus -. As for the report to be sent to the city council, it is true: we are late. However, I remind everyone that the Council took office on 3 March 2020 and that the next day there was the government decree for the containment of the pandemic. Our activities were also delayed, meeting was difficult ».
Colossus underlines how Councilor Bono is certainly not new to attacks against the Council of foreigners. «He had harshly criticized the #immaginideipregiudizi exhibition claiming that discrimination, prejudice, intolerance towards migrants do not exist, while that exhibition fueled a hate campaign towards“ native whites ”. Not to mention Bono’s attacks on humanitarian corridors ».
The stances against the motion of the League were very hard, starting with the vice president Mario Zannini: “Colossus’ skills in immigration, which you have amply demonstrated to have, and his ability to keep his political affiliation out by playing a role super parts during the meetings, they constitute a precious added value precisely to achieve the institutional purposes of this municipal body, in the prevailing and exclusive interest of foreign citizens ». “I therefore hope that the city council will reject by a large majority the motion presented by councilors Bono and Piras – concludes Zannini – which frankly appears more like an attempt to hinder the operation of the Council perhaps, and not surprisingly, precisely at the moment in which, despite the difficulties caused by the complexity of the phenomenon, are beginning to see the first results in relation to the social policies of reception and integration of foreign citizens in our territory ».
“I’m a foreigner and I don’t see myself not represented by an Italian president, in this case the Colossus – she comments Maria Jeanga, within the Consulta as a representative of Moldova. – The Consulta must continue to be represented by Colossus until some of us grow up and feel like being president. With the difficulties that we have lived and are living, it is not a time for hatred and spite, but for collaboration and serenity, because there is so much for us foreigners to do in this city too ».
We do not understand the request for the first point of the motion, which should have been dealt with in the Consulta, as we have already done several times – he adds Pull out Benlamine, president of the Eshorouk association – -. We want to reiterate that we support the elected president and the work done, which took place in a particularly difficult year ».
«I have participated in almost all the meetings of the Consulta, but it does not seem to me that criticisms have been raised against President Colossus. Criticisms with a severe tone, which in the normal dynamics of associations, come after repeated requests and unheard observations – he observes Pierangelo Monti of the Good Samaritan Association -. I therefore ask the councilors Piras and Bono to provide the members of the council, to be convened urgently, with adequate explanations of this step, which they address to the city council without having mentioned it first in the council. I believe this is an unfairness towards the Council ». –