Nichi Vendola

Nichi Vendola (2008)

Nicola "Nichi" Vendola ( [ˈniki ˈvɛndola] ; born August 26, 1958 in Bari ) is an Italian politician. He was president of the Apulia region from 2005 to 2015 and chairman of the Sinistra Ecologia Libertà (SEL) party from 2009 to 2016 .

Life

Early political career

Vendola is the son of a postman and a housewife. His nickname Nichi is derived on the one hand from Saint Nicholas , patron saint of his hometown Bari, on the other hand from Nikita Khrushchev , whom the communist father valued for his policy of de-Stalinization . At the age of fourteen he joined the youth association of the Partito Comunista Italiano (PCI), whose secretariat he was part of from 1985 to 1988. He studied literature and philosophy at the University of Bari . In his thesis he dealt with the work of the poet and film director Pier Paolo Pasolini . He then worked as an editor at the communist party newspaper L'Unità . In 1978, Nichi Vendola was one of the first Italian politicians to openly acknowledge her homosexuality . In addition, he became known in the 1980s for his involvement in the league against AIDS and in the gay and lesbian cultural association ARCIgay. As a devout Catholic , Vendola has long been associated with the Christian peace movement. The focus of his work continues to include efforts to improve the living conditions of the disabled, the mentally ill and prisoners.

In 1990 he became a member of the Central Committee of the PCI. Vendola was one of Pietro Ingrao's supporters and rejected the transformation of the Communist Party into the Democratic Left Party . Instead, he took part in the founding of the Partito della Rifondazione Comunista (PRC) in 1991 . From 1992 to 2005 he was a representative of the Apulia region and the constituency of Bitonto in the Chamber of Deputies . There Vendola worked in the committee of inquiry into the mafia and organized crime, of which he was secretary from 1994–96 and deputy chairman 1996–2001. From 2001 to 2005 he was spokesman for the Rifondazione Comunista in the Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Regional President and SEL Chairman

In his home region of Apulia, Vendola achieved a highly acclaimed success in the 2004 European elections , but then renounced his mandate in the EU Parliament in order to continue devoting himself to southern Italian politics. In January 2005, Vendola was surprisingly nominated as the top candidate of the Alliance of Center-Left Parties ( L'Unione ) in Apulia by a primary election (with an unexpectedly high participation of around 80,000 people) . This was the first time that a communist headed a center-left alliance through the vote of the grassroots. From the regional election of 3./4. April 2005 Vendola emerged as the winner with 49.8% against 49.2% for the center-right candidate Raffaele Fitto . Three weeks later he took up the post of regional president of Apulia.

After the defeat of the left-wing alliance La Sinistra - L'Arcobaleno in the Italian parliamentary elections in April 2008 and the retirement of the PRC from the national parliament, Vendola proposed at the Seventh Party Congress in July 2008 that the communists with other smaller left-wing parties such as Sinistra Democratica , Unire la Sinistra ( Umberto Guidoni ) and Federazione dei Verdi should merge. However, he was unable to assert himself against the party chairman Fausto Bertinotti . In January 2009 Vendola left the PRC with his supporters and founded the Movimento per la Sinistra (MpS; Movement for the Left). This merged - as planned by Vendola - in December 2009 with other left-wing groups to form the Sinistra Ecologia Libertà party (SEL; Left Ecology Freedom), of which Vendola was chairman until 2016.

In the regional election 28./29. In March 2010 he was confirmed as President of Apulia with 48.7% of the vote. The exclusion of doctors who do not perform abortions for reasons of conscience, from job advertisement competitions for the regional health service, ordered by Vendola, found little approval in Catholic circles and was overturned as unconstitutional by the Administrative Court. In the course of the euro crisis Vendola criticized in July 2011 in a guest article in the British Guardian , the austerity policies of the Berlusconi government . Vendola ran in November for the open area code of the center-left alliance (Italia. Bene Comune) for the position of the top candidate for the parliamentary election in February 2013 . With around 485,000 votes (15.6%), he came third behind Pier Luigi Bersani and Matteo Renzi from the Partito Democratico (PD). Vendola was re-elected to the Italian Chamber of Deputies, but resigned after four weeks in order to concentrate on his office as regional president.

Vendola did not run in the primaries of the center-left parties for the 2015 regional elections. For candidates were Michele Emiliano from Partito Democratico elected, who won the election with 48% of the vote and became the successor of Vendola on June 26, 2015. His party SEL merged with other left-wing groups at the end of 2016 - including Futuro a Sinistra from Stefano Fassina , a left split from the PD - to form Sinistra Italiana (SI; Italian Left). Vendola no longer holds a leading position in this.

Private life

Since 2004 Vendola has lived with the Canadian graphic designer and creative consultant Ed Testa. The couple has had a son since 2016, who was born to a surrogate mother in California . Vendola played a supporting role in the 2009 film Focaccia blues directed by Nico Cirasola . He also writes poetry and in 2011 published a volume entitled Ultimo mare . In October 2018, he suffered a heart attack and was stented.

reception

The resignation of long-time Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and the euro crisis attracted public interest in 2011 more than in previous years. For example, Die Zeit wrote :

“While Berlusconi was transforming Rome into a madhouse, an alternative arose in the extreme southeast of the country, not only to the decadence of Berlusconian influences, but also to the ossification of traditional politics. Nichi Vendola, the prime minister of the Apulia region, organized his party SEL (Left, Ecology, Freedom) entirely over the Internet. The party books for the meanwhile 45,000 members have been abolished, but everyone can present their ideas and actions online. Vendola, who began his political career as a youth functionary in the tightly organized Communist Party, put everything on the grassroots. And he is successful with it. In Milan, his candidate surprisingly won the mayoral elections. Vendola himself was re-elected in Puglia, he is considered one of the contenders for the leadership of the center-left.

Young Italians in particular have high hopes for him. They like Vendola because he is unconventional and lives just as unconventional. He's a devout Catholic and homosexual, he's leftist, but not from yesterday. Since Vendola ruled, Puglia has been in a much better position than other regions in the south: environmental protection and waste separation are not foreign words, as is sustainable tourism. And the mafia is not as powerful as in Calabria or Campania. Local traditions are maintained, and at the same time, even in the most remote villages, the communities offer citizens free internet. "

The taz quoted Vendola in October 2011 as saying:

"In Italy the political class is called a" caste ", that is wrong. Politics is only the sentinel of international finance. The old radical left has survived just as much as the reformist left. What I want is a new, post-ideological, pluralistic, popular left that is primarily interested in the new, the young people and their language. "

The Huffington Post began an article with the sentence, "He has been called the Italian Barack Obama - an improbably elected official who has mobilized his country's youth in an Internet-driven movement of hope and change."

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Luca Telese: Nikita Kruscev da Bari. In: il Fatto Quotidiano , January 25, 2010.
2. ↑ Deutschlandradio, Europa Today, September 10, 2010: Nicki Vendola - The man from Apulia  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ^ Bac Margherita: Puglia, i medici contro Vendola, "Assunti solo i non obiettori". In: Corriere della Sera , June 28, 2010, p. 18.
4. ^ Bepi Castellaneta: Aborto, il Tar ferma la crociata di Vendola In: Il Giornale , September 15, 2010.
5. ^ Nichi Vendola: Italian debt: Austerity economics? That's dead wrong for us In: The Guardian , July 14, 2011.
6. ^ Nichi Vendola e il compagno Ed papà: negli Usa è nato Tobia Antonio. E il caso diventa politico. In: La Repubblica - Bari , February 28, 2016.
7. ↑ Vendola has heart attack, not in danger. ANSA, October 17, 2018.
8. ↑ Ulrich Ladurner, Birgit Schönau: Without him. In: Die Zeit , No. 46/2011, November 10, 2011.
9. ↑ Nichi Vendola on leftists and being gay: "You want to get in trouble, don't you?" Interview with R. Valsecchi and A. Waibel, taz.de, October 2, 2011
10. ↑ Andrea Stone: Nichi Vendola, Gay Italian Politician, Is New Generation Rival To Silvio Berlusconi. In: Huffington Post , June 21, 2011.

Web links

Commons : Nichi Vendola  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Own homepage (Italian)
• Profile of Vendola on the Apulia Region website
• Christina Ujma, A UFO over Apulia, Nichi Vendola - an intellectual of the Facebook generation becomes a hero of the Italian left , in: Friday , February 2nd, 2010.
• Riccardo Valsecchi, The Impossible Candidate , in: the daily newspaper , November 18, 2010.
• "You want to get in trouble, don't you?" Nichi Vendola on the left and being gay. Interview with R. Valecchi, A. Waibel. In: the daily newspaper . October 2, 2011, accessed October 6, 2011 .