I am an anti-Communist leading only a rebellion against the injustices of Rome." After the indecisive regional elections in June 1959 in which the UCSC gained 10 per cent of the votes, Milazzo again succeeded in forming a majority coalition with the aid of Christian Democratic defectors. Downfall Milazzo was under constant pressure from the Vatican and the Christian Democratic national government led by Antonio Segni, and spent most of his time trying to defend his two-vote majority in Sicily's regional Assembly. In February 1960, Milazzo resigned, after a regional deputy revealed that he was approached to change allegiance for a substantial amount of money by one of Milazzo's top aides, the Communist Ludovico Corrao. The nation's anti-Communist press and politicians seized the occasion to remove the Italian Communists from their one real foothold in Italy. "An unheard-of attempt at corruption," Milan's Corriere della Sera headlined. The Communist maintained a bewildered silence. Rome's pro-Communist newspaper Paese Sera claimed that Milazzo was the victim of a Mafia plot. Mafia backing? On the contrary, rumours about Mafia backing of Milazzo's government were confirmed in the 1980s by several Mafia turncoats (pentiti), such as Tommaso Buscetta and Antonio Calderone. Both the Mafia clan in Catania and the Cosa Nostra-backed entrepreneur Costanzo campaigned for Milazzo. The Salvo cousins supported the Milazzo government as well as the old Mafia families of Greco and Bontade. The Operation Milazzo, as it was called, was something of a clientelist “coup”, according to scholar René Seindal. The Christian Democrats lost control of the region's resources and the various parts of Milazzo's coalition strengthened their negotiating position towards the Christian Democrats. The Salvos, for instance, gained control over the private concession for collecting taxes in Sicily with extremely favourable conditions. To consolidate the privilege, the Salvos unscrupulously withdrew their support for Milazzo to ally themselves with the mainstream Christian Democrats which tried to regain control of the region to maintain their cliental power base. From then until the mid-1980s the Salvos were among the most powerful businessmen in the economic, political and social life of Sicily – until they were prosecuted by Palermo's Antimafia pool that included Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. They controlled the Christian Democratic party branch in the Province of Trapani that guaranteed them great influence over the regional decision making of the DC. After initially supporting Milazzo, the Mafia was not opposed to the fall of