Italian Elections: All Is Not Lost

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Take the street cleaner, Salandria. He has spent the last decade on temporary public-works contracts — deemed "socially useful" jobs by a state welfare scheme — with a monthly stipend of $770. A father of five, he says he has had to supplement his income with cash-paid day jobs in construction: "You do your best to support your family." Meanwhile, Mayor Melfi's nephew, Sergio Zaccaria, 27, a business major at Roma Tre University in the nation's capital, says he is not likely to come back to live in Amendolara. "Young people here are bitter that we can't maximize our ability," he says. "So, many of us will never be able to return home."

That's not entirely an accident, suggests economics professor Cersosimo. He says the Mezzogiorno has discerned "a tacit convenience to underdevelopment." Elected officials campaign on their ability to keep public resources flowing in — Calabria alone gets $95 million a year to fund the socially useful jobs program — and claim victory when their area continues to be classified as backward. That label qualifies the Mezzogiorno for $4.2 billion in European Union aid, as well as another $12.8 billion from Rome's coffers. "Politicians have an interest in maintaining the status quo," he says. "There is no clear road map for bringing real development."

The failure of the state is on stark display 180 miles (290 km) south of Amendolara in the town of San Luca. This is the heart of 'Ndrangheta country. The Calabrian mob — whose name derives from the Greek word for "honorable man" — controls wide swaths of territory through intimidation and extortion. The payoff has been great: it has grown into a world leader in cocaine trafficking, with an estimated $47 billion in annual revenue. But the toll has been heavy. The "Massacre of Ferragosto" — the gangland killing last Aug. 15 in Duisburg, Germany, of six young men from in and around San Luca — was the first major 'Ndrangheta killing to occur on foreign soil. Violent death is more common in Calabria, where three people were killed in a five-day period in late March near the town of Crotone.

In San Luca, a gloomy town where most homes have unfinished-cement exteriors, the criminal presence can be inferred from the rusty dumpsters and lampposts riddled with bullet holes. In the weeks following the Duisburg killings, a Time reporter and photographer visiting San Luca were met by a pair of teenagers whizzing past on a moped three times in a five-minute span — staring menacingly and veering closer each time. Resident Luca Giorgi offered a warmer welcome, but his message was ambiguous. "Every time something happens, they talk about 'Ndrangheta. What is this 'Ndrangheta?" asks the 33-year-old pizzamaker, who spent a decade in the northern city of Bologna before returning to San Luca. "No one here rapes women on the street. There's respect."

But that "respect" is often a cover for pervasive corruption. Last month, police arrested a member of Calabria's regional council, Franco La Rupa, for alleged connections to 'Ndrangheta (he denies the charges); according to local reports, he is the fifth regional politician to be arrested for alleged Mob ties since 2006.

The west-coast city of Naples has its own crime syndicate, the Camorra, which has long infiltrated the waste-disposal business. The government's failure to confront the situation erupted in December, and the burning garbage may have tainted more than Italy's image. The trash emergency may be linked to elevated toxin levels in the Naples region's famous buffalo-milk mozzarella. Italian health officials have recently been forced to check hundreds of factories that produce the cheese after South Korea and Japan temporarily banned imports and the E.U. threatened to do the same.

Alberto Cisterna, a Calabrian anti-Mob prosecutor, says new, counterintuitive thinking is needed to overcome both the Mob and bad governance. Organized crime, like the politics of favoritism, will wither in influence, he says, when people start viewing it as a relic of the past. "The Mafia, like the old way of doing politics, is no longer able to satisfy people's primary needs," he says. "The trash in Naples is the failure of both systems."

Economy Ministry official Barca says basic democratic precepts are absent in many southern towns. "You need a civic debate on the simple things that improve the quality of life," he argues. "Citizens should ask why, if bus service arrives in the next town over, it doesn't arrive in their town too. For too long, there has been no punishment in the political marketplace."

Back in Amendolara, Melfi doesn't claim to have the magic solution. "I make 100 errors a day," the mayor says. "But I know that if I hadn't made any mistakes I wouldn't have accomplished anything at all." Italy needs more leaders willing to err in the pursuit of the public good, and citizens who learn to discard — and not recycle — those whose sole ambition is to cling to power.

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