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After the "no" vote in the Justice referendum, Giorgia Meloni called for a complete purge...
Italian Tourism Minister Daniela Santanch has resigned after pressure from Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. After the "no" vote in the Justice referendum, Giorgia Meloni called for a "complete purge": and thus came the resignations of Giusi Bartolozzi, Chief of Staff at the Justice Ministry, and Undersecretary of Justice Andrea Delmastro Delle Vedove.
In a statement on Tuesday evening, Palazzo Chigi asked that, along the same lines of institutional sensitivity, a similar decision be taken by Tourism Minister Daniela Santanchè. The latter, until now protected by the government despite her legal problems, and having survived three no-confidence motions from the center-left, ignored Meloni's request to resign.
But a fourth no-confidence motion called on Monday to dismiss her led to the resignation of the Minister of Tourism. But she resigned with a statement destined to cause a stir.
" I do not want to be a victim. The referendum loss was not my fault and my criminal record is clean ," the resignation letter said.
She further explained that the reason she had left the post of Minister of Tourism was only because Meloni had asked her to. She stressed that she would comply with her request, but added that she could not hide her disappointment.
"Dear Giorgia, I present to you, as you officially requested, my resignation from the role of minister that you entrusted to me, which I believe I have fulfilled as best I could and without any hindrance. I thank you for the recognition and trust you have shown me during these years of leading the Ministry of Tourism. I wanted (and I hope you will understand) to make it publicly clear that it was you who asked me to leave this role because, as I have always said, I would resign only at your clear and public request. I wanted it to be clear, for the sake of my honor, that I am resigning, not only because of the request that the leader of my party considers useful and appropriate. I was, and am, keen to emphasize that to date my criminal record is clean and that the issue of severance payments has not even been referred to court.
Yesterday, perhaps unexpectedly (you will understand my state of mind), I expressed to you my reluctance to resign immediately, because I wanted this to be separate from my comments on the referendum, because I do not want to be the victim of a defeat that was certainly not my fault, given the result in Lombardy and even in my municipality. I also wanted my resignation to be separate from the contingent and very different issue involving the Honorable Del Mastro, who is also paying a high price. Having made this clear, I have no difficulty in saying "I obey" and doing what you ask of me. I will not hide a little bitterness from you about the outcome of my ministerial journey, but in my life I have become accustomed to paying my own bills and often those of others. I am more interested in our friendship and the future of our movement. Warm greetings , "the letter from the now former Minister of Tourism read.
-Daniela Santanchè's legal problems
That Santanchè could leave the government had been circulating for some time. Not so much because of the criticism surrounding her shares in Twiga in Forte dei Marmi, which she immediately sold to avoid accusations of conflicts of interest, or the "Welcome to Meraviglia" advertising campaign, which had attracted criticism all over the world. But because of serious legal problems. It was in June 2023 when the first investigation emerged, involving the management of Visibilia Editore and accusations of bankruptcy and false accounting. The Milan prosecutor's office had been investigating the bankruptcy of Visibilia and Ki Group since November 2022, but the news became public after an investigation by the television program Report. The main hypothesis related to "unbelievable accounts" from 2016 onwards, with the accusation of having delayed the emergence of a major financial crisis. In July 2023, Minister Santanchè stated that she had never received any notice of an investigation and that she had learned that she was under investigation from the media.
This initial investigation has been followed by others: the minister has been targeted by prosecutors for alleged fraud against the National Social Security Institute (INPS) (her company's employees continued to work despite receiving unemployment benefits) and last February it emerged that she was under investigation for suspected collusion in the bankruptcy of Bioera spa, a company in the organic food sector already listed on the stock exchange, headed by Santanchè until 2021 with her former partner Canio Giovanni Mazzaro among the directors, and placed in judicial liquidation in December 2024 by the corporate crisis section of the Civil Court of Milan.
Santanchè's name also appears in the investigation into the suspicious sale of Francesco Alberoni's villa in Versilia, bought by Dimitri Kunz D'Asburgo, Daniela Santanchè's partner, and Laura De Cicco, wife of Senate President Ignazio La Russa, for 2.45 million euros. The villa was resold within an hour to businessman Antonio Rapisarda for 3.45 million euros. According to reports, the Guardia di Finanza (Italian Financial Police) has been assigned to investigate money laundering, the destination of the 1 million euro capital gain and whether part of the amount was used to cover Visibilia's debts.
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