Rosy Bindi

Italian politician (born 1951)

Maria Rosaria "Rosy" Bindi (; born 12 February 1951) is an Italian politician and the former president of the Antimafia Commission. She began her political career in Christian Democracy (DC), becoming a member of the European Parliament in 1989. After the dissolution of the DC, she joined the centre left leaning Italian People's Party (PPI) in 1994 and Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy (DL) in 2002. Bindi served as Minister of Health and Minister for Family in the centre left coalition governments of Romano Prodi and Massimo D'Alema from 1996 to 2000 and 2006 to 2008. In 2007, she was among the founding members of the Democratic Party (PD), and was the party's president from 2009 to 2013. Elected a Chamber of Deputies in 1994, after a total of six legislatures, she did not run for re election in 2018 and left the PD, ending her political career.

Born in Sinalunga, in the province of Siena, Bindi graduated in political science. Prior to her graduation at LUISS, Bindi enrolled in sociology at the University of Trento, and later became a researcher in administrative law in the Faculty of Political Science at La Sapienza in Rome and then in the Faculty of Law at the University of Siena until 1989. A pupil and later assistant of the lawyer, magistrate, and DC politician Vittorio Bachelet, she was standing near Bachelet when he was assassinated by the Red Brigades in 1980. Bachelet's death contributed to Bindi's anti mafia activism.

From 1984 to 1989, Bindi held the position of vice president of Azione Cattolica, the most popular Italian Catholic lay association, with which she continues to be active. In the 1989 European Parliament election in Italy, she was elected a member of the European Parliament, a position she held until 1994. During her period at the European Parliament, she was president of the Petitions and Citizens' Rights Commission. later in the 2000s, she was also a lead figure of the DL. In 1999, she also reformed Italy's national health service, closely following Anselmi's reform of 1979. In the 2001 Italian general election, Bindi was elected for the third time to the Chamber of Deputies in the constituency of Cortona representing the DL. After the victory of The Union in the 2006 Italian general election, she became Minister for the Family, the result of a merge between the DC's centre left leaning legal successor parties with those of the Italian Communist Party, Bindi competed for the 2007 PD leadership election, and was the distant runner up; she received 12.93% of the vote cast. She continued to work for the party, leading the Democrats Really faction, until the 2018 Italian general election, when she did not seek re election, and ended her political career. From 2008 to 2013, Bindi was the vice president of the Chamber of Deputies. From 2009 to 2013, she was president of the PD. In the 2013 PD leadership election that ensued after Bersani resigned due to Prodi's failed candidacy, she did not endorse neither eventual winner Matteo Renzi nor Gianni Cuperlo, who succeeded her as the party's president; she said that she did not recognize herself in neither candidate. During the 2017 PD leadership election, Bindi voted for the runner up Andrea Orlando. Later that same year, she said that the PD under Renzi had betrayed The Olive Tree and described it as Silvio Berlusconi's crutch. In 2018, Bindi called for the dissolution of the PD, a position she repeated in 2022. In an interview to La Repubblica on 12 February 2021, Bindi reiterated that she no longer recognized herself in the PD, and that is why she continues to not renew her PD membership card. In the 2023 PD leadership election, Bindi did not endorse neither eventual winner Elly Schlein nor Stefano Bonaccini. In April 2017, the Antimafia Commission headed by Bindi invited the Guardia di Finanza to seize and make public the lists of 35,000 members of the four main Italian Masonic obediences. The lodges described the parliamentary inquiry as a witch hunt. Bindi called the description made by Giuliano Di Bernardo, a Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Italy lodge at Palazzo Giustiniani in Rome who testified to the Antimafia Commission, a "truly separate order within the state". In December 2017, she said that the Sicilian Mafia and 'Ndrangheta were interested to Masonry. According to the Antimafia Commission, the secrecy of Freemasonry "is inconceivable in a democratic state". The final report, which said it was not about Masonry itself but rather "on the relational aspect of the mafias", concluded that there were organizations in which "there has been a sort of 'surrender' towards the mafia", with a control system which "has often proven ineffective above all due to the lack of will in this sense". In March 2017, Bindi was the head of an Antimafia Commission about the alleged ties between the then Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli and the 'Ndrangheta within the inquiry about alleged tickets sales to 'Ndrangheta members. Bindi commented: "The mafias in Italy even reach Juventus, this is clear." A supporter of Juventus rival Fiorentina, Bindi ironically congratulated Agnelli for winning the 2017 Coppa Italia final and sent her best wishes for the 2017 UEFA Champions League final but said that in the league she "must respect the pluralism of the fans". It later emerged that a wiretap implicating Agnelli, which Bindi had cited during a parliamentary audition in response to the objections of Agnelli's lawyer and the doubts of the then PD senator Stefano Esposito, was fabricated by the public prosecutor Giuseppe Pecoraro, a supporter of Juventus rival Napoli who had said that he hoped Juventus would not win the scudetto, and Agnelli and the club were acquitted of the charge. Although Juventus was the only club investigated by sports justice, the Antimafia Commission report also cited Catania, Genoa, Lazio, and Napoli, and concluded that "the largely criminal background of the representatives of organized groups is the ideal humus to allow the infiltration of mafia type organized crime" and that these cases "paint a varied picture". Bindi commented: "Football, as a body, is not healthy enough to consider itself immune from mafias, it is a world rich in money and the possibility of creating consensus. "refn|The report read: "The power of intimidation of the ultras fans within the 'stadium territory' is often exercized in ways that reproduce the mafia method; together with this, the condition of apparent extra territoriality of the curves with respect to the authority has allowed the groups to acquire and strengthen their power towards the sports clubs and their employees or members. The situation is further aggravated from the point of view of the clubs, from the social base of the fans themselves, made up of significant contingents of people with criminal convictions, in some cases close to 30% of the total, according to the estimates of the forces of police. In the corners, in fact, the anarchy in the management of spaces, compared to the criteria for assigning seats dictated by the ticket sales system, for the most extreme fans is also functional in making the identification of individuals more difficult, since the mapping of the stadium sectors is effectively prevented on the basis of the match between the name of the buyer and the seat assigned by the computer reservation system. Ultras groups are often made up of individuals with serious criminal records or, in any case, with personal histories characterized by aggressive and antisocial behaviour, ready to give rise to violence, outside the stadium or in the stands, against the opposing fans or against the forces of order, to unsportsmanlike gestures, racist chants, use of smoke bombs or other dangerous instruments or, more generally, to initiatives sanctioned by federal regulations." In the context of the 2021 Italian government crisis, she defended Giuseppe Conte and criticized Matteo Renzi. She said: "Meetings with my universe of reference, the Catholic world, the anti mafia, the schools, are always on the agenda and held remotely. Now it will be Mario Draghi who will take us out of the [COVID 19] pandemic. I respect the person and I also believe that he is the right man. But let me tell you two things. I would have given Giuseppe Conte another chance. If it is true that there were some shortcomings, there is no doubt that the war was unleashed against him. I am intrigued by the fact that Matteo Renzi today manages to say, quite with impunity, that he paved the way for Draghi. He closed it to Conte. His target was Conte. Stop. And to achieve it he made Italy risk its neck." About liberal democracy and the threats to it, she said: "Democracy is faltering on this continent, public policies and policies on common goods, from work to welfare, have been backwards since the 1980s, and when a democracy no longer guarantees respect for fundamental rights, the mechanism of individualism is triggered." About the Meloni government, of which Sangiuliano is part as Minister of Culture, she further commented: "This government is not only not anti fascist, it is also anti republican." She further explained to Sangiuliano that while the Constitution of Italy recognizes private property and profit as legitimate, it attributes a social purpose to them. She said: "The richness of our Constitution has a social purpose. There are common goods and public goods which are more important than individual goods. Since this lesson has been forgotten, school, public health, safety in the workplace, and on the streets have been abandoned. And therefore inequalities increase."

1996 general election (C): Tuscany — CortonaCandidateCoalitionVotes%Rosy BindiThe Olive Tree60,44365.1Anna DuchiniPole for Freedoms29,19331.4Others3,2873.5Total92,923100.0
2001 general election (C): Tuscany — CortonaCandidateCoalitionVotes%Rosy BindiThe Olive Tree56,45261.5Leonardo GiomarelliHouse of Freedoms32,62335.5Others2,7943.0Total91,869100.0

Little is known about Bindi's private life, other than she is not married and has no children. In a 2011 interview to the weekly A, she opened up about her personal life, stating that she has had two to three boyfriends. A practising Catholic, one of her interests is theology. Bindi was often the target of Silvio Berlusconi's sexist jibes, and from other centre right coalition politicians, such as Vittorio Sgarbi, who once referred to the Italian president Sergio Mattarella as "the unexpressed twin of Rosy Bindi", whose role as president of the Antimafia Commission he criticized. When Berlusconi died in June 2023, she said that "sanctification is not good for Italy, national mourning is inappropriate", and that the national day of mourning was "disrespectful toward the majority" who opposed him. Her views were shared by other individuals, including among others Andrea Crisanti, Luigi de Magistris, and Tomaso Montanari.