In Sicily there are few women in politics and mobilization is growing

Mobilization is growing against the temptation of Sicilian politics (especially, evidently, the male one) to “halve” the number of women in positions of power. On the horizon is the October 15th session of the Sicilian Regional Assembly, where the 70 deputies will once again discuss the bill “Regulations regarding local authorities”. Contested, among others, is the one that sharply cuts the fixed minimum quota of presence of women in municipal councils, from 40 to 20 percent.

The pressure from women and democratic associations is forcing at least the Sicilian Regional Assembly, governed by a centre-right majority, to reflect. And a change of heart would seem to be taking place in the direction of an agreement on the 40% threshold as also proposed by the Democratic Party and as announced by the president of the Institutional Affairs commission, the DC Ignazio Abbate, according to whom the agreement is a done deal. But the game in the Chamber – with all its pitfalls, including the possible use of the secret vote – is something else.

Thus, in view of the Sala d’Ercole session on the 15th, the lights are kept on. “We will see if, in the next few days, the ARS will backtrack in the chamber compared to the expected norm – urges Emilio Miceli, president of the Pio la Torre Study Center – we must keep the pressure high in order to reach a result that exalts civilization in the face of to the cultural retreat we are witnessing these days. The truth is that, at the basis of everything, there is an unhealthy idea of ​​politics, of the role and spaces that women must have in politics and society”.

In front of Palazzo dei Normanni, many will be pushing in the opposite direction, so that women have equal rights in the governance of public affairs, of bodies, within institutions and companies. The objective is to block, continues Miceli, “an extreme act of defense of political balances which have always been marked by the marginalization of women. Ancient and never overcome political-current balances which, in this way, risk not being able to be maintained “.