The case of the Suvignano estate: a story of mafia, anti-mafia and politics

The article reconstructs the events of the Suvignano farm, in the Sienese area, confiscated in 1996 to an entrepreneur from Palermo considered close to Cosa nostra and assigned in 2018 to a company owned by the Tuscany Region. Unlike other studies on confiscated assets, mainly focusing on quantitative aspects or their management, the paper proposes a case study based on an integration of techniques and sources, from interviews with qualified witnesses to the consultation of institutional documents. The analysis aims to explore the social and political significance that Suvignano assumes for the local community and the political class. After the definitive confiscation in 2007, Suvignano becomes a political resource disputed between different actors, local and national. Around this political resource take place two challenges, led and won by a Tuscan leftist institutional network, distant heir of the red subculture. The first challenge is against a similar Sicilian institutional network. The second is against local political actors: the traditional (Forza Italia) and the new (Salvini-Lega) centre-right, as well as the emerging 5 Stars Movement. The article shows how these two challenges are won thanks also to the Tuscan civil society, ready to mobilize against a "public evil", as the mafia is usually represented. In a phase in which the political consensus becomes uncertain, the centre-left parties find in the fight against the mafia a powerful source of political legitimacy.