da dave » ven ott 09, 2009 10:29 am
Bello questo articolo del Times!!!
From The Times October 9, 2009
Silvio Berlusconi, the Houdini of Italian politics, may be left a lame duck
While Italy’s top judges were considering their verdict on his immunity law this week, Silvio Berlusconi found time to open an exhibition in Rome of paintings of European saints with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State and the Pope’s deputy.
“Your Eminence, there is a serious omission here,” the Prime Minister observed. “Saint Silvio is missing.” He was joking — but not entirely. The jocularity was intended partly to show that his relations with the Vatican were on the mend after an intemperate attack this summer by Il Giornale, the Berlusconi family newspaper, on a Catholic editor who had dared to criticise the Prime Minister’s “immoral” behaviour.
But it was also a sign that despite the 9-6 ruling by the 15 judges of the Constitutional Court that he is not after all above the law, Mr Berlusconi still believes that he is an exceptional figure to whom normal rules do not apply.
Observers ask whether the Houdini of Italian politics could pull it off one more time. He now faces prosecution for having allegedly given David Mills, his former tax lawyer and the estranged husband of Tessa Jowell, the Olympics Minister, a $600,000 bribe to lie for him in court in corruption trials in the 1990s. Mills was convicted in March, and prosecutors say that if he was “corrupted”, then Mr Berlusconi was, by definition, the “corrupter”. Other prosecutions are probable.
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Trials are absurd, says defiant Berlusconi
On the other hand, as Corriere della Sera pointed out yesterday, he has managed to stay in power while fighting court cases before — and he relishes a fight. After their initial euphoria on Wednesday, opposition leaders were more cautious yesterday. The centre-right coalition, said Massimo D’Alema, a former centre-left Prime Minister, still has a majority in Parliament, “and whoever has the majority runs the country”.
In the Mills case, moreover, prosecutors will almost certainly have to start the case against him ab initio rather than resuming where they left off when the immunity Bill was passed last summer. The chances are that because of Italy’s statute of limitations, the time allowed for trial, appeal and definitive conviction will run out, as has happened in several previous cases brought against Mr Berlusconi.
The real danger he faces is that with his power weakened by sex scandals and the return of corruption allegations, those looking to the “post-Berlusconi era” will start manoeuvring for the succession. He could have gambled on early elections, calculating that his popular mandate would be confirmed. Instead, he will continue in office, but as a lame duck.
All eyes are on Gianfranco Fini, the suave former neo-Fascist and co-founder of the ruling People of Liberty party who, as Speaker of the Lower House, has quietly carved out a reputation for responsible and sober leadership. In this context, Mr Berlusconi’s near-megalomania could prove his undoing. His appeal this week to “the people” over the heads of the “communist” judiciary was accompanied by menacing threats of “direct action” from Umberto Bossi, leader of the far-right Northern League and one of his key coalition allies.
Many Italians still back Mr Berlusconi. But many — including centre-right voters — agree that “the law is equal for all”. It was unwise of Mr Berlusconi to indulge his obsessive anti-communism by attacking the highly respected President Napolitano, a former communist, claiming that the five Constitutional Court judges appointed by the head of state must be “left-wing”.
Mr Berlusconi, Mr Fini drily observed, had clearly not followed his advice to react “calmly”. The message will not have been lost on those worried that Mr Berlusconi’s troubles are wounding and distracting him at a time when Italy is struggling to pull out of recession.