"The Chiesa case was a very minor case. It acted as a detonator because the time was ripe for “Tangentopoli”, which was due to something much more complex than this: it has always been known that there was corruption in Italy, the ruling class exuded this stench of sewage that everyone could smell, the famous “holding your nose”. However, as long as the alternative to this political class in power at the time was a Communist Party, which was a facsimile of the Soviet one, based on tanks, secret police, denunciations, trials, [...] as long as this spectre existed, we could not afford the luxury of putting the ruling political class on trial and sending them to prison. It was when this nightmare collapsed with the Berlin Wall that the time was ripe for this to happen."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mani_pulite
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Mani pulite
Mani pulite (from Italian: clean hands) was a nationwide judicial investigation into political corruption in Italy held in the early 1990s, resulting in the demise of the First Italian Republic and the disappearance of many political parties. Some politicians and industry leaders committed suicide after their crimes were exposed.
114 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Mani pulite →
Related Quotes
"If Craxi had become Prime Minister, he would have made choices that would have strongly countered the emerging excess…"
"Tangentopoli had two perverse political outcomes. It saved Italian communism, which was in ridiculous agony and had t…"
"I would not say that the situation is particularly worrying. We have put in place numerous controls on our spending. …"
"A judiciary that must be protected from any attempt to delegitimise it, in order to maintain its prerogative as an in…"
"Twenty-five years after the Mani Pulite investigations, Italy remains a country with a very high level of corruption.…"
"Since 1992, a false narrative of that period has taken hold. All sorts of things have been said: that there was exces…"
"It was a missed opportunity for politics, which failed to seize the chance to truly renew the rules of the game and t…"
"The party system has apparently collapsed because there has only been a superficial change, which has recycled too ma…"
"Mani Pulite still provokes both hatred and love today, dividing detractors from supporters. This is a sign that what …"
"When the law, due to obvious disparities in treatment, conflicts with feelings of justice and fairness, it becomes ve…"