after the murder of Antonio Bardellino and the escape from the town of all the members of his family Mario Iovine automatically found himself at the head of the organization but his long awaited rule didn’t last long in fact this was only the beginning of a protracted war of succession a civil war among the clans that became increasingly bloody in fact between clan members sympathizers or even just relatives there were dozens of victims murdered in the street or in public bars cafés and restaurants in houses at work wherever they were found and even some of the clans that had initially accepted the elimination of Antonio Bardellino and had allied themselves with Mario Iovine and Sandokan in order to protect their zones of influence were actually only waiting for the right moment to overthrow the new high command this was the case with the De Falco clan whose capo Enzo also known as Enzo the Fugitive immediately clashed with Sandokan the reason was that the De Falco clan had supported the election of their chosen man for mayor of Casale di Principe traditionally the territory of Sandokan’s clan and they had done so with the aid of the lawyer Aldo Scalzone the clan’s business mastermind and middleman for relations with politicians and the government

in this period moreover the organization which in its greatest phase of expansion had established and maintained excellent relations with the political world and had in fact allied itself solidly with that world now instead with the collapse of the so called first Italian Republic in the aftermath of the Tangentopoli investigations and the disappearance of the parties to which the organization was traditionally allied that is the Christian Democrats and the Italian Socialist Party found itself in serious difficulties and suffered grave damage the system of power that was based upon the electoral exchange the control of the local governments and administrations and the system of public contracts collapsed in a burgeoning crisis and so the organization was forced to defend itself to react to a violent and very hostile campaign by the local press and when the elections rolled around with opposing center left and center right coalitions the organization decided to support the center right since it viewed the center left as an enemy that it had to destroy because it supported the police and the judiciary and had proposed in the Italian parliament sending the enemy down to our part of Italy to defeat organized crime and so the organization decided to support the center right

the political campaign was white hot the front doors of many of the left wing candidates were burned the organization absolutely could not allow any of the town governments in its territory to include any of its enemies they all had to be people that supported the clan no one could be allowed to cause the slighest trouble or annoyance and when it happened for instance that the municipal elections in Casale di Principe were won by a center left alliance and therefore a member of that alliance was made mayor the organization couldn’t just murder him because by this point the zone was under close control there was a research center on organized crime it did what it could it dumped a mountain of water buffalo shit outside the front door of the new mayor but before long three municipal councilmen members of the majority two of them commissioners were successfully bribed and when there was a council vote to approve the town budget they voted against it which brought down the municipal government and they had to hold new elections