Leoluca Orlando

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Leoluca Orlando (2019)

Leoluca Orlando (born August 1, 1947 in Palermo ) is an Italian lawyer and politician . With a short break he was from 1985 to 2000 and has been mayor of Palermo again since May 2012 as well as a member of the Sicilian , Italian and European Parliaments. Orlando became internationally known for his fight against the Mafia and has lived under permanent personal protection ever since .

Life

Leoluca Orlando's parents belonged to the Sicilian elite. His father was a lawyer and came from an upper-class legal family, his mother came from the old Sicilian nobility. He first attended a Jesuit school in Palermo. He then studied law in Palermo and Heidelberg and then worked in Palermo as a professor of public regional law at the Faculty of Law at the University of Palermo and as a lawyer at the Corte Suprema di Cassazione . Orlando became an advisor to the Mediterranean countries in the OSCE in Paris from 1978 and at the same time also a legal advisor to the President of the Sicily Region , Piersanti Mattarella , until he was murdered by the Mafia in 1980.

In 1985, Orlando was elected mayor of Palermo until 1990 on the Democrazia Cristiana list. He also formed an alliance with left-wing MPs that wanted to break radically with previous political practices. In particular, companies suspected of being controlled by the Mafia should be excluded from municipal contracts. In retrospect, this time is known as Primavera di Palermo ("Spring of Palermo"). In 1990 he won his re-election despite the boycott of some party friends in the national parliament .

His efforts to renew the Democrazia Cristiana met with increasing opposition. Therefore, he resigned from the DC in 1991 and then founded the democracy movement " La Rete " ("The Net"). In addition, he tried with a complex project of civil renewal to push back the influence of the Mafia in everyday Sicilian life. A long line of programs - particularly in the field of culture and education - have aimed at promoting a new culture of legality.

Because of his fight against organized crime , Orlando was threatened with life and limb. For many years it was considered to be the top spot on a so-called "hit list". His adherence to the fight against organized crime and corruption was ultimately able to break the silence on which this phenomenon is based, the omertà . In a "struggle of women", Orlando found unusually broad support among the female population. Palermitan women offered him their own children to accompany him on every car trip so that the mafia would know that a bomb attack on his car would also affect innocent children. Although he did not accept the offer, it became clear to everyone involved that this was the end of Omertà , the passive and secret consent with the Mafia. In 1994 he was elected to the European Parliament for La Rete and was a member of the European Parliament until 1999. After retiring from office as mayor in 2000, Orlando became president of the Sicilian Renaissance Institute .

Orlando is married and has two daughters. In 2002 he published his autobiography "I should be next" and most recently a collection of stories under the title "The Sicilian Cart" . He symbolizes Sicily with a cart that can only get on again with the two wheels of democracy and legality on the one hand and the wheel of culture. In 2006 he was elected to the Italian Parliament.

In the documentary film Palermo whispers (2000) by the Munich director Wolf Gaudlitz , Leoluca Orlando makes an appearance in which he symbolically repairs the clock in the city ​​hall of Palermo . Gaudlitz introduced Orlando to the German television audience in 1993 with a documentary film.

In the local elections in May 2007 Orlando ran again as mayor of Palermo and narrowly lost the election against a representative of the center-right alliance. Orlando spoke of electoral fraud and unsuccessfully asked Interior Minister Giuliano Amato to cancel the election. Observers rated this defeat less as a victory for the right-wing rival candidate than as a triumph of " Berlusconism " and thus a broad turning away from the state and the preference for short-term selfish advantages. On May 21, 2012, Leoluca Orlando was elected Mayor of Palermo for the fourth time with 74 percent of the vote.

Political career

  • From 1980 to 1985 Orlando was a city councilor in Palermo. He led the left-wing parties in the city council of Palermo. At that time he was a member of the Italian Christian Democrats (DC) party.
  • In 1985 Orlando became mayor of Palermo for 12 of 16 years until the end of 2000. His reign in Palermo (1985–1990 and 1993–2000) represented a political break with the past and became known as the “Spring of Palermo”.
  • In 1990 Orlando broke with the Christian Democratic Party and founded the democracy movement "La Rete" (The Network).
  • In 1991 Orlando was elected to the Sicilian Parliament for "La Rete" .
  • In 1992 Orlando was elected to the Italian Parliament for “La Rete” .
  • In 1993, Orlando was confirmed as mayor of Palermo with 75% in Italy's first direct mayor election. As a result, he canceled all contracts between the city of Palermo and companies that were suspected of being under the control of Mafia families.
  • In 1994 Orlando was elected to the European Parliament . He was a member of the following commissions:
- Malta's entry into the European Union (Vice President)
- "Public Liberties and Home Affairs" (member)
- Regional policy (member)
- Security and Disarmament (Deputy Member)
  • 1997 Orlando was confirmed as mayor of Palermo with 59%. With that he entered his fourth and thus the last possible four-year term of office as mayor according to the Italian electoral law.
  • In 1999 Orlando joined the Democratic Party of Italy, which was founded by Romano Prodi .
  • In December 2000, Orlando resigned as mayor of Palermo to run for president of Sicily. In June 2001, Orlando was elected to the Sicilian Parliament with almost one million votes. With 36.6% to 59.1% of the votes, he was clearly defeated by the center-right candidate Salvatore Cuffaro , who is close to Berlusconi , but achieved personal success as he received over 200,000 votes more than the coalition that supported him. With that he became opposition leader.
  • Since April 2006, Orlando has been a member of the Italian Parliament for the Italia dei Valori party , which is led by the anti-corruption judge Antonio Di Pietro .
  • Since July 2006 Orlando has been the spokesman for the Italia dei Valori party .
  • From October 2006 until the new election in 2008, Leoluca Orlando was President of the “Commission for Regional Affairs” of the Italian Parliament.
  • In 2012 he was elected mayor of Palermo for the fourth time.

criticism

The actual role of Orlando in the fight against the Mafia is controversial and has been several times, including a. on the part of mafia hunters like Giovanni Falcone , has been described as pure rhetoric . In his role as Mayor of Palermo in 1990, Orlando was responsible for the split in the fight against the mafia in 1990 with his attempt to create a counterpoint to the anti-mafia pool, and was heavily criticized for this. Here Orlando did not always make statements that corresponded to the actual state of the investigation about ongoing proceedings, which he described as closed, which led to sometimes violent, publicly fought verbal battles with the then head of the anti-mafia pool Giovanni Falcone.

Works

  • Contributo allo studio del coordinamento amministrativo. Milano, 1974
  • Teoria organica e stato apparato. Palermo, 1979
  • I should be next. Civil courage - the chance against corruption and terror . Herder, Freiburg 2002, ISBN 3-451-27985-1
    • English: Fighting the Mafia and Renewing Sicilian Culture. Encounter Books, New York City 2003
  • The Sicilian cart. Impressions from an eventful life . Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-250-60063-6
  • Leoluca Orlando racconta la mafia 2007, ISBN 8802077762
    • German: Leoluca Orlando tells the Mafia 2008
  • Sicily for hand luggage: Stories and reports - a culture compass , Unionsverlag 2012. ISBN 978-3-293-20551-2
  • Una rondine fa Primavera. , Palermo, 2012
  • Il futuro è adesso - La grande Rete e la terza Repubblica. Melampo editore, 2013

Awards

literature

Movie

  • Numbered Days - From the Life of Leoluca Orlando. Television documentary, Germany, 1993, 70 min., Director: Wolf Gaudlitz, production: Duo Film GmbH, Radio Bremen , first broadcast: October 21, 1993, ARD

Web links

Commons : Leoluca Orlando  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files
Wikiquote: Leoluca Orlando  - Quotes (Italian)

supporting documents

  1. ↑ "First Heidelberg student - then fighter against the Mafia: Prof. Orlando speaks in the old auditorium" ( Memento of the original from July 1, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Heidelberg University , November 23, 2004 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.uni-heidelberg.de
  2. ↑ Palermo whispers ( Memento from December 1, 2005 in the Internet Archive ), film homepage with pictures, reviews, etc. a.
  3. ^ “Local elections in Italy. Center-right triumphs in the north ” , Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung , May 31, 2007
  4. ↑ "Leoluca Orlando. The good godfather of Palermo ” , Süddeutsche Zeitung , May 12, 2007
  5. ↑ a b “We are in a pre-revolutionary situation” , Tagesspiegel , August 3, 2007
  6. ^ "Center-right wins Sicily mayorships; Berlusconi says it's the beginning of the end for Prodi " , AP / International Herald Tribune , May 14, 2007
  7. ^ Official results at the Italian Ministry of the Interior
  8. ↑ see p. 126/127 in I Should Be Next , Polemic by Leonardo Sciacia and p. 37-47 The Sicilian Cart on the same subject
  9. ^ Repubblica, May 22, 1990
personal data
SURNAME Orlando, Leoluca
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian lawyer and politician, member of the Camera dei deputati, MEP
DATE OF BIRTH August 1, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Palermo