For en utenforstående er det merkelig at mafiaen ser ut til å nyte en ny høysesong. Inntrykket av at mafia-jegerne Falcone og Borsellino vant etter sin død, viser seg ikke å stemme. At det er Roberto Saviano som må fortelle oss dette, er heller ikke noe godt tegn.

Mafia networks now exert such strong control over local politics that they no longer need protection at the national level. They have learned that throwing their weight around in Palermo or Naples is the way to obtain results in Rome. And no government has managed to blunt the Mob’s economic power. In today’s Italy, going up against organized crime leads not only to a loss of consensus and votes, but also to a world of trouble in getting public works projects completed. Our failure to take on these Mafias risks letting them live on and thrive forever. It doesn’t matter who will govern the country after April; the Mob has already identified which candidates it can deal with on either side of the political divide.
 
 Too many elections in Italy are won, even today, by the time-tested process of buying votes. It is an especially formidable weapon in the south, where high unemployment is so endemic that many ambitious young people emigrate to the more prosperous north or abroad. When I was a kid in the 1980s, an individual’s vote tended to cost more than it does today. It might have been worth a job at the post office, say, or in public administration or a school or hospital. By the time I grew up, votes were typically sold for far less: telephone and electricity bills paid for the two months before and one month after an election. In the last few ballots, the new bait has been the cell phone. Someone shows up and gives you one before the election, and you can keep it if you come back with a photo on this new, shiny handset showing your ballot marked for the right candidate. The phones, which are worth about $75 apiece, are even conveniently set up to snap the pictures silently. The fluctuating value of a vote seems to have returned to its level in the 1950s, when the businessman-mayor of Naples, Achille Lauro, offered packs of pasta and a new left shoe before an election. The right shoe could be collected afterward upon proof that the correct choice had been made.

Maimed by the Mob
by Roberto Saviano – TIME