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News :: Right Wing |
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Italian Fascist PM Berlusconi Circling the Drain |
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by Roland Flamini
(No verified email address) |
14 Jul 2004
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Chief International Correspondent
WASHINGTON, July 14 (UPI) -- By lasting three years in office, Silvio Berlusconi has already earned a place in the political record books as the longest-serving prime minister in postwar Italy. |
His right-of-center coalition has withstood mass opposition to his support for the Iraq war, the personal scandal of his trial -- currently pending -- on charges of bribing a judge, his disastrous six-month presidency of the European Union, and an economy that seems incapable of lifting itself out of the doldrums.
But this week his apparent ability to ride out any crisis seemed to be faltering, and observers were saying that he might not achieve the next record -- staying in power for a full five-year term until 2006.
On Monday the marriage of convenience between his own Forza Italia Party and his partners seemed dangerously close to unraveling because of differences over the government's spending priorities in the 2005 budget.
A media and real estate tycoon turned politician, and the richest man in Italy, Berlusconi has promised voters a tax cut, which he believes will give a boost to the economy. But Gianfranco Fini, the deputy prime minister and leader of the neo-fascist National Alliance, favors more public spending. Another partner, the Northern League, which is seeking more autonomy for Italy's industrial north, is pressing for institutional reforms (a part of the coalition's program) that would introduce more decentralization and regional independence.
The first casualty of a weekend of inter-party wrangling was Finance Minister Giulio Tramonti. He was forced to resign Sunday, when Fini threatened to pull his party out of the coalition in a "him-or-us" standoff. The departure of Tramonti, a senior member of Forza Italia and the Berlusconi cabinet and the architect of the tax-cut proposal, was seen as an indication that the prime minister was losing control over the government. "Berlusconi must really have felt cornered to have sacrificed Tramonti, who personifies Berlusconism more than the prime minister himself," said one Italian political source in Rome.
Press reports described heated arguments as Berlusconi attempted to defend himself against criticism from his political partners in his worst political crisis since his election in 2001. "It's all your fault," Berlusconi shouted at Marco Follini, leader of the Christian Democrats (UDC), the smallest of the four parties in the coalition. "Let's see how you would fare if I quit and went back to being a businessman." When Follini threatened to quit the coalition, Berlusconi warned him that he would use his media empire against the UDC if the Christian Democrats brought down the government.
Typically, Berlusconi has not appointed a successor to Tramonti, but has taken over the finance portfolio himself "for the foreseeable future," as he says. This is the second time he has added a second ministerial hat to his own. Last year, he appointed himself foreign minister just as Italy was about to assume the rotating presidency of the European Union. At the top of the agenda was EU approval of the draft European constitution -- a complex task calling for skilful negotiation to iron out individual complaints. Many analysts agree that the mercurial politician did not live up the challenge, and to some extent the constitution's subsequent problems were a result of the project's loss of momentum during that period.
His first task this week was to appear before the European finance ministers in Brussels to outline an austerity package that would cut around $8 billion out of Italy's budget to stop Italy being in breach of the EU's economic stability regulations and having to pay a hefty fine.
Critics said the package was a modest one, but he managed to persuade the EU to let him off the hook -- at least for the moment. But it is going to take all of his legendary persuasiveness to sell it to his coalition partners, who are pressing for the very opposite.
Part of Berlusconi's problem is that Forza Italia took a beating in last month's European and local elections, losing votes to his coalition partners as well as to the center-left opposition. Berlusconi's election setback mobilized the center-left, which has increased both its vigilance and its pressure on the government. There is also the psychological impact of the looming return to Italian party politics of Berlusconi's nemesis, Romano Prodi, the outgoing EU commission president. Prodi is the only man to have defeated Berlusconi (in the 1996 election).
And there is also the loss of public support, mainly because of Italy's poor economic performance. The brash, populist outsider swept into power on the promise of a new Italian economic miracle is seen as having failed to deliver. No wonder the Italian press has taken to calling Berlusconi a "lame duck" -- in English because the phrase has no adequate Italian equivalent. |
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