A bus in Rome with electoral propaganda. /
Scientists who have become famous with the pandemic are seduced by the parties ahead of the legislative elections this Sunday
“If we did not have a vaccine against covid, I would be very worried about what could happen in an Italy governed by center-right parties that have winked at the anti-vaccines.” This is the opinion of Andrea Crisanti, director of the department of molecular medicine at the University of Padua and ‘head of the list’ of the Democratic Party (PD) in the Europe constituency ahead of next Sunday’s legislative elections. A militant veteran of this center-left formation, he has decided to enter politics taking advantage of the recognition achieved during the pandemic, in which he emerged as one of the most respected virologists in the country.
Crisanti is not the only expert linked to the coronavirus that could go from hospitals and television screens to the corridors of power. Although he is not running as a candidate in the next legislative elections, he has shown his desire to enter the next government Matteo Bassetti, director of the Infectious Diseases Clinic at the San Martino Polyclinic in Genoa. “I am available to lend a hand as a technician,” Bassetti commented last month when asked if he would be willing to be the Minister of Health in the future Executive.
Basetti’s sympathies towards the center-right bloc are well known, which, according to all the polls, starts as the favorite for the next appointment with the polls. The conservative alliance is made up of Fratelli d’Italia (FdI, Brothers of Italy), Giorgia Meloni’s far-right party, Matteo Salvini’s League and Silvio Berlusconi’s electoral brand Forza Italia.
Like Crisanti, another epidemiologist catapulted to fame due to the pandemic, Pier Luigi Lopalco, is also trying to avoid a victory by the centre-right bloc. He is running as a candidate for the left in the Senate in the Apulia region, in the south of the country, and has political experience, having coordinated the committee in charge of managing covid in his community, where he was also a councilor for a year. Health. Lopalco is convinced that the right is more dangerous when it comes to managing a pandemic than the left because it is “more concerned about the economy than health.” These statements have provoked the critical logic of the conservative parties.
«It gives me chills to think that you can talk about right-wing and left-wing virologists. The first thing has to be the well-being of patients and public health. Scientific integrity is my compass, the rest does not count, “says Crisanti, recalling that in the past he has criticized both some decisions made by the right-wing regional government of Veneto and others by the outgoing central executive, of which the PD was a part. He has blamed them for not acting firmly enough to try to stop the virus from circulating. “Scientific integrity cannot be questioned by the political ideas that each one has,” stresses the director of the department of molecular medicine at the University of Padua, whose entry into politics was answered by Matteo Salvini, leader of the League, with a harsh message on social networks: «The televirologist Cristanti, candidate with the PD. I think a lot of things are understood now.”
Defense of the “common good”
For this expert, it is particularly critical that parties such as the League or Fratelli d’Italia have shown themselves in some phases of the pandemic to be in tune with the anti-vaccine movements or with those who were against the use of the vaccination certificate. “It is unfortunate that they have forgotten that the common good must be their main objective and that they adopted a position that does not respond to scientific criteria,” criticizes Crisanti, who is relatively calm before the “balanced situation” to which he has covid arrived.
“And if new variables arose that would also put vaccinated people or those who have overcome the disease in serious problems, the political color of the Government would count for very little. We would return to a public health requirement and the virus would again dictate the agenda », he assures.
The far right suspends a candidate for praising Hitler
The far-right Brothers of Italy party, a favorite in next Sunday’s legislative elections, has suspended one of its candidates for Parliament for praising Adolf Hitler on social media. Calogero Pisano, leader of Giorgia Meloni’s party in the province of Agrigento, Sicily and a member of the national leadership, posted on Facebook in 2014 that the party’s slogan (‘Italy above all’) reminded him “of a great man of State 70 years ago”, specifying that he was not talking about Benito Mussolini but about “a German”.
As a result, Pisano has been suspended “with immediate effect” from his internal functions, according to a party statement, which stresses that “he does not represent Brothers of Italy at any level and is prohibited from using their logo.” The letter acknowledges that he can even be legally sanctioned for it.