dal sito dell'independent. in grassetto i passaggi che più qualificano il nano di arcore all'estero (e con lui gli italiani).
la solita stampa comunista!
The Big Question: Is Silvio Berlusconi poised to return to power in Italy, and can he be stopped?
By Peter Popham
Tuesday, 29 January 2008
Why are we asking this question now?
Because, following the collapse of the Italian centre-left government last week, the billionaire media mogul who was Prime Minister until 2006 looks well set for a third spell in power.
Is this such a bad thing?
It depends who you ask. He was the first Italian Prime Minister since Mussolini to rule for five years straight.
Tax evaders and people who constructed buildings without permits enjoyed amnesties, crooked accountants saw their crimes de-criminalised, construction firms linked to the Sicilian Mafia awaited the mother of all bonanzas from his pledge to build the world's longest single-span bridge across the Straits of Messina.
But Italians who hoped that five years of stable government would bring long-overdue reform of the justice, educational and health systems, not to mention the scandalously inefficient bureaucracy of government, were sadly disappointed; as were those who hoped he might tackle entrenched vested interests in the professions, and the fact that Italian politicians earn far more than their counterparts abroad. The businessman who promised to bring efficiency and good accounting to the government's finances left office with public debt at the catastrophic level of 4.3 per cent of GDP.
So if he failed to carry out those reforms, how did he fill the time?
During the years before he came to power for his second term, prosecutors found what they believed to be good reasons for charging Mr Berlusconi and some of his closest colleagues with numerous offences of bribery and corruption, tax evasion, false accounting, etc.
As it would have been obviously unsatisfactory for the serving Italian Prime Minister to be called to defend himself against criminal charges in court, let alone be actually sent to jail, Berlusconi devoted large amounts of parliamentary time to passing laws to make this impossible or at least much more difficult – laws exempting senior office holders from prosecution, permitting cases to be moved from one city to another, shortening the time before the statute of limitations kicked in, and so on. And to the extent that he has yet to spend a day in jail, and most of his legal worries have evaporated, that went very well.
So he's legally in the clear now, is he?
Not quite. A new case threatens to take him to court for trying to persuade a senior manager at the state broadcaster to cast six young actresses in RAI programmes, in return for business favours. Mr Berlusconi calls it justice by the stopwatch – timed for maximum political embarrassment. And he's innocent.
What about his conflicts of interest?
Berlusconi never conceded a conflict between being Prime Minister and having a controlling interest in 95 per cent of Italy's terrestial broadcasting. And while Prodi did draft a law on the subject, he didn't have much appetite for passing it. It remained stalled.
If he made such a mess of his first term, why is he tipped to win again?
Mr Prodi raised taxes to cut the budget deficit and went after tax evaders, neither measure designed to raise popularity. He oversaw a slight economic recovery and a historic reduction in unemployment;
he removed the stigma of Berlusconi burlesque from Italy's foreign policy – Silvio's idea that Israel should be in the EU, for example, his statement exculpating his friend Vladimir Putin of any wrongdoing in Chechyna, his likening a German socialist MEP to the kapo in a concentration camp, etc.
Prodi restored seriousness to foreign policy, withdrew Italy from Iraq, took the lead in putting a peace force in Lebanon and got the UN to pass a motion demanding a moratorium on capital punishment. But none of these measures cut much ice down at the pizzeria.
Isn't Silvio a bit long in the tooth to serve five more years?
Yes: he turns 72 in September. But the Senator John McCain is 71 and, like McCain, Berlusconi boasts a living mother (though not as hale as McCain's). He has tried to defuse the row by saying he will be "Tony Blair" for three years then bring on a Gordon Brown equivalent to serve the last two.
Leaving Silvio to sail into the sunset in one of his yachts?
If only.
No one is in much doubt that his ultimate aim is a seven-year term as President of Italy, the head of state responsible for the smooth running of the constitution. This idea makes many Italians laugh or weep, depending. One reason for this ambition, it is claimed, is because the President's official home is the Quirinal Palace, one of the most fabulous and historic mansions in Rome and the former home of the popes. And Berlusconi has always had a keen eye for a good property.
So when are the elections due?
Hold your horses. The centre-left is still working overtime to make sure they don't happen!
Isn't that rather undemocratic?
They say not.
Months before leaving office Berlusconi rammed through an electoral law, scrapping the largely majoritarian system, introduced in 1993 with the idea of giving Italy a workable bipolar system, and replacing it with an extreme form of PR, which allowed tiny parties on as little as two per cent into parliament. The result was a stalemated Senate which hog-tied Prodi from the outset. Now the centre-left insist the system must be reformed by a government lead by technocrats before elections are held. But the view yesterday was that they were losing the argument. Berlusconi hopes for elections in April.
Doesn't Berlusconi have a messy coalition, too?
Yes: it unites northern secessionists and central and southern post-Fascists with a sprinkling of Christian democrats: highly indigestible. Berlusconi himself has described it as "ectoplasm". He is the only glue it has. But, scenting victory, they have hastily buried their differences.
And the centre-left?
In disarray: the new centrist Democratic Party, piloted by the Mayor of Rome, Walter Veltroni, barely exists yet – hence the glee with which Berlusconi has pounced on the prospect of new elections immediately.
Will Berlusconi come back to power?
Yes
* If President Napolitano decides the consensus of the parties is strongly in favour of elections now
* If the centre-left fails to persuade the electorate that they will manage better next time
* If Berlusconi keeps his fractious coaltion together and the opinion polls continue in his favour
No
* If Napolitano installs a technical government to change the electoral rules
* If the Italian people decide that a return to the Berlusconi style of politics would be a bad move for the country
* If the continuing legal actions against the former Prime Minister drag him down.
...se sbaglio, mi corigerete. (gpII)
