Who is Cateno De Luca, the surprise of the elections in Sicily

He also elected two parliamentarians in Rome. The profile

The last elections gave us a surprise that little is said about, it’s called Cateno De Lucaalso called ironically “Unleash“. At the Regionals in Sicily, De Luca’s party,” Sicilia Vera “, finished second by beating the center-left candidate Caterina Chinnici. The success of”Unleash“does not stop in Sicily: “South calls North, De Luca mayor of Italy” he presented himself in the national elections and managed to get to Parliament by electing a senator, Dafne Musolino, and a deputy, Francesco Gallo.

Cateno De Luca is neither right nor left. He is not politically placeable having always been part of autonomous Sicilian civic lists. For some observers, given his protests particularly during the period of anti-Covid restrictions, he could fall into the category of populists.

Cateno De Luca is probably as unknown in Milan as in Bologna and Rome but he is very famous in Sicily. His election results have been a runaway rise, since he began his political career at 18 at the age of 18. City Council of your country, Fiumedinisi, in the province of Messina. At 22 he became councilor and after losing the 1998 municipal elections he reapplied in 2003, managing to win, only to be reconfirmed for a second term in 2008.

In 2006 he is a candidate forSicilian Regional Assembly (Ars) for the regional elections and was elected deputy with the “Movimento per le Autonomie” and again for the same acronym he was also re-elected at the following Regional elections in 2008. In 2011 he resigned as mayor of his city, but from June 21 to 19 July 2011 he was suspended from the office of regional deputy because he was placed under house arrest.

However, the battle continues. In the 2012 Sicilian regional elections he ran for the presidency, supported by the list “Sicilian Revolution“, but he gets only 1.23%. Then he runs as mayor in Santa Teresa di Riva, winning in the first round and remaining in office until 2017, when he is re-elected as deputy to the Ars. Not even a year and De Luca is candidate in the municipal elections of Messina in 2018, winning them. And we arrive at the last elections, in which De Luca multiplies the votes taken in Sicily, resulting in the second elected candidate, and also enters Parliament with “South calls North, Cateno De Luca mayor of Italy”. In Messina, its candidates Musolino and Gallo beat the center-right candidates and the party exceeded 31%.

Cateno De Luca is also called “Unleash“for various blatant gestures that drew attention to himself, as in 2007, when he appeared naked at the Sicilian Regional Assembly wrapped in the flag with the Sicilian coat of arms – the Trinacria – to protest against his failure to be appointed to the Budget Commission. In one hand he held a Pinocchio, in the other the Bible.

In 2007, as a member of theArs, he showed up in his underwear at the headquarters of the province of Messina to protest against the cuts in the water supply to the Aeolian Islands. As mayor of Messina he entered the town hall with a motocross to sponsor an event, and shot a music video of a local group wearing the mask of the Netflix series “La casa di carta”.

Even during the lockdown De Luca made people talk about himself: he protested against the use of the Green Pass on ferries to and from Messina with a hunger strike, blocking access to boarding and causing numerous inconveniences to the cry of “Enough with the state kidnapping“. To enforce the restrictions, De Luca sent cars around the city spreading messages such as: “Where c … are you going? Go home! Kick in c … that’s the way to enforce the rules. You can’t go out!”. De Luca had also proposed to monitor the population by means of drones that screamed his words, something totally infeasible.