For politicians the Camorra becomes an honest organization during an electoral campaign, like an institution you can’t do anything without. I had an office set up. An elegant office: I bought expensive antiques, archaeological pieces, notable paintings from galleries where the foremost Italian executives went to decorate their homes. And I had the upholstery made with fabrics purchased from decorators who were doing the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. In this office I received people. I gave advice, I took the names of individuals to be hired by our politicians. I heard people’s complaints. If you had a problem I resolved it in my office, certainly not by going to the administration, to the non-existent counters at town hall. Here too, the Camorra is more efficient. It has a dynamic bureaucracy.

In actuality Maurizio Prestieri lived less and less in Naples and more and more in Slovenia, Ukraine and Spain. But not when there was an election around the corner. During an electoral campaign the boss’s presence was required in the area:

I come from a family that voted for the Communist Party, my father was an honest worker and when I was little he took me to all the demonstrations. I remember Berlinguer’s rallies, the red flags, fists raised to the sky. But then we all became Berlusconi supporters, everybody. My clan always supported Forza Italia first, and then the Popolo della Libertà party, when they merged. I don’t know how the change came about, but it was natural to align with those who want you to make money and who take all the obstacles and rules out of your way.

Prestieri knows exactly how an electoral campaign is run. Where I come from the Camorristi call the politicians ‘i cavallucci’, the horses: they are merely individuals to bet on, to make them advance to the Municipality, the regional government, the Parliament, the Senate, the Government:

Once I even served as polling place supervisor, eleven years ago. We campaign even when the polls are open, even though it’s not allowed. Not only to persuade and buy those who haven’t yet voted, but to be seen by the people who go to vote, as if to say: we’re keeping an eye on you. Sometimes we spread the rumour that we were putting TV cameras in some of the polling places. It was nonsense, but people were intimidated and wouldn’t let themselves be bought by other politicians or persuaded by some argument.

An election campaign is long but the clans are able to manage it by intimidation on the one hand and by agreement obtained through a simple trade: