Here we go again.. one step forward 3 steps back
Huffington Post Italy reaports
Cannabis, referendum at risk: “Municipalities do not send documents”
In addition to the signatures, electoral certificates must be presented by 30 September, many offices have not sent them. The government is asked for an extension
The referendum on the legalization of cannabis is in danger of being blown away by the slowness of the bureaucracy. Yes, because after almost 600 thousand signatures have been collected in just over a week, all online through the Spid, the risk is now that the promoting committee will not be able to present to the Court of Cassation all the documents useful to continue the process.which should bring the question before the voters.
Time is running out: the delivery of the 500 thousand signatures, necessary for the referendum request to be considered valid, and the related electoral certificates must be made by 30 September. The signatures are already stored, they don’t need authentication, so there is no problem. The problem, however, is being created by the Municipalities or, at least, some of them, which should send the electoral certificates and are delaying. If they continue to ignore the requests and not send the documentation, the great success of the subscriptions collected in a few days will officially go up in smoke.
To prevent this from happening, there are two ways: either the municipalities hurry up, or the government should grant an extension of the deadline for delivery. And the promoters would point to this second option. To sensitize the executive – which, barring last minute surprises, seems to be in hiding – they organized a demonstration for tomorrow at 6 pm, in front of Palazzo Chigi.
“We understand the difficulties of the municipalities – Riccardo Magi, parliamentarian of + Europe and one of the promoters of the referendum, explains to the Huffpost – because many of these are also struggling with administrative elections. Precisely for this reason we ask the government to include in a decree the extension to 31 October for the presentation of signatures. Only in this way can discrimination between referendums be avoided ”. The extension had in fact already been granted for the referendums on justice and euthanasia, promoted last spring. The postponement of a month had been dictated by the state of emergency which, however, was extended until the end of the year. Result? There is still one month left for the referendums on justice and euthanasia,
In truth, in the last few hours the situation, at least in part, has been unblocked. Marco Cappato, one of the promoters, in the morning had published the list of municipalities that had not yet sent the signatures, despite the requests. During the day, however, some entities ran for cover, and so that list – which included many small towns, but also large cities, such as Florence, Naples, Milan – was removed. At the moment there is no precise number of defaulting municipalities – “they could be around a thousand”, a source tells us – nor is it known exactly how many electoral certificates are missing. “The situation is being updated minute by minute”, explain us from the Luca Coscioni association. Despite some positive signs, the objective has not been achieved, and the concern remains: “The referendum is at risk”, repeat the promoters.
The alarm was triggered on Friday, when, after the 48 hours within which by law the municipalities would have had to send the documentation, only 200 thousand electoral certificates had arrived. Less than half of those needed to keep the referendum going and just over a third of the signatures collected. The appeal lacked 1400 municipalities. At that point, on Saturday, the warnings were issued, to solicit sending. But the promoters, who do not seem to want to place any blame on the offices that may not respond because they are overburdened by so many other obligations, did not stop at this. They wrote to the President of the Republic, announcing the hunger strike, inviting him to urge the government to intervene:
To try to speed up the sending of the certificates, the president of Anci and mayor of Bari, Antonio Decaro, also intervened and sent a message to his colleagues: “The digital transformation of popular participation institutions also took place in a complex moment and delicate for the electoral offices of many municipalities both for those who are interested in the administrative vote and for those who have to reorganize and reschedule post-emergency activities. All this, however, cannot and must not prevent the deposition of the signatures used in the Supreme Court by September 30th ”. Then the invitation not to comply with the requests of the promoters of the referendum: “Even in the awareness of the innumerable difficulties, I ask you to verify the effective and effective support from your Administration, to the exercise of a constitutionally protected and guaranteed right such as that of the democratic participation of citizens in the legislative initiative “. And finally the commitment to protect the first citizens: “I will check with the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Justice, possible solutions to deal with this” democratic emergency “which cannot fall only on the shoulders of the mayors”.
Times are very tight, but the goal can still be achieved. Certainly, if the government were to intervene, the road would be much less bumpy.
