Regards, Ivan
Posted on 04/16/2006 5:51:05 AM PDT by MadIvan
LEAVING the San Siro stadium on Friday evening after watching AC Milan, the team he owns, beat their city rivals Inter 1-0, Silvio Berlusconi declared: "I am an optimist, a fighter."
Despite being narrowly defeated in last week's general election, the pugnacious Italian prime minister is being true to his word.
Berlusconi has published a letter in the nation's leading newspaper, the Corriere della Serra, calling for his victorious opponent, Romano Prodi, to join him in a "grand coalition" of their two parties, and threatening to topple a future Prodi government if it turns his offer down.
Italy, the leader of his ruling Forza Italia party said, was confronted with "stalemate, a situation in which, at least based on the popular vote, there are neither winners nor losers".
"In the event in which an extreme line is taken, it is evident that Forza Italia and its allies will conduct a coherent and rigorous battle in defence of the values and the interests that have been entrusted by 50% of the electorate," the letter added.
Prodi had rejected a similar bid earlier last week, saying democracy meant that the side that wins was entitled to govern, no matter how thin the voting margin.
But the new letter has raised the stakes.
If Berlusconi were to succeed in producing parliamentary gridlock, he could force new elections. And experts say Prodi is especially vulnerable to such an attack in the Senate, where he would have a majority of only two seats.
Berlusconi's latest attempt to prevent defeat, despite his narrow loss at the polls last week, has been met with criticism from the victorious left.
Massimo D'Alema, the president of the Democrats of the Left, the largest centre-left party, demanded that Berlusconi should now concede defeat and work together with them for a smooth transition of power.
"Instead he wants to relaunch an inadmissible proposal for a grand government, for which the political conditions and programmes are lacking," D'Alema, himself a former prime minister, said in a statement.
However, with Berlusconi showing no signs of conceding defeat, and now threatening to bring about parliamentary chaos should he be forced to, Italy is now flirting with the bad old days of permanent elections.
The earliest moment for some sort of resolution is likely to come in the next few days, when the nation's highest court is set to certify the election.
Berlusconi had hoped to claim victory in a recount of contested ballots - a bid which was dashed on Friday when the interior ministry revealed that the number of disputed votes was not 82,000, as had previously been claimed, but barely 5,000.
But that too has not stopped Berlusconi from clinging on to the hope that he can still triumph. Alleging that there had been "so much fraud" in these elections, the prime minister has said he wants a recount of the million ballots in both houses that were either blank or disqualified, in what is being seen as a clear attempt to erase the credibility of a Prodi victory.
If the election stands, however, other centre-right leaders are also explicitly stating that they aim to destabilise Prodi as much as possible.
Roberto Maroni, the welfare minister, declared: "Our aim is to devise means by which to ensure that such a government falls as soon as possible."
Once the court validates the election, it will be up to the president to give Prodi a mandate to form a government. However, the president's term ends in mid-May, and the current president, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, has said he would leave the decision up to his successor, meaning that the current stasis could carry on for another month.
Even if Prodi then secures power, and faces down Berlusconi's threats, he faces an extraordinarily difficult task ahead, say analysts, if Italy is to shed its tag as the new Sick Man of Europe.
His unruly team is already bickering about which of the many maladies to treat first - and how.
Prodi has declared getting public finances under control a priority. But already a communist party - taking a cue from Italy's top union - is creating distractions, saying it wants to repeal a law passed by the centre-right government of Berlusconi introducing more workplace flexibility.
"The biggest problems are public debt and the competitiveness of Italian goods," said James Walston, a political science professor at the American University in Rome. "But in order to deal with those, he has to overcome the fear of being fired. If he is lucky, and if he is clever, he will be able to do something."
A long list of woes hampers the eurozone's third-largest economy.
Growth plummeted to zero in 2005, dragging European growth down to 1.3% with the worst performance among the 12 countries using the euro. Public debt rose last year for the first time since 1994, to 106.2% of gross domestic product.
Ironically, the European Commission, once led by Prodi, is adding to his problems, having ordered Italy to cuts its debt and resolve what it calls its "deep-rooted structural problems". Top of the list is the need to bring the budget deficit below 3% of GDP by 2007, in line with the European Union's Stability and Growth Pact that underpins the euro.
Economists say that achieving that will require tax rises - something Prodi pledged this week he won't do - or credible privatisation plans, which left-wing elements in his coalition would likely oppose.
Franco Bruni, an economics professor at Milan's Bocconi University, said businesses need to be able to rely on having a phone line installed promptly, on mail being delivered in a timely fashion, on trains running punctually, on feeling protected from criminal elements. "These are factors that all improve productivity," Bruni said.
But the most important factor determining the future will be having a stable government.
This will require Prodi to rein in his partners - calling on the good will of industry and unions and using the threat of Berlusconi's return if the left can't govern effectively.
"Making reforms is easy on the pages of a newspaper, but it is not so easy to do in the parliament," Bruni said.
Meanwhile, Berlusconi shows no signs of making things any easier. Leaving his grand palazzo in central Rome on Friday, he beamed across at reporters and tourists. "We will resist!" he declared.
Jogger takes power game in his stride
CLAD in his favourite skin-tight blue tracksuit, Romano Prodi was back enjoying his biggest hobby at the weekend: jogging.
The 66-year-old economics professor is a regular sight on the pavements of Bologna in central Italy, his home town. A fitness fanatic, he is likely to need the stamina of a marathon runner if he is to live up to the Herculean task now facing him - first to stay in power at the head of a fractious and weak coalition, and then to attempt to rescue Italy from the economic quagmire.
Despite having held the presidency of the European Commission, Prodi remains an unknown quantity for many - largely as a result of his low-key approach to politics. Mocked in Italy as a bumbling rural priest, he is seen as dull and uncharismatic.
His family life is as functional as is possible: he has been married to his wife Flavia for 36 years. They are rarely seen without each other.
Prodi has carefully turned the caricature of his personality to his advantage in the election, offering to provide a more stable leadership to voters grown weary of Silvio Berlusconi's histrionics.
He responded last week to Berlusconi's demands for a recount and claims of irregularities with bemusement. "He was in control of everything in this election," he declared, noting that Berlusconi's government oversaw the voting and the ballot counting. "He doesn't trust in himself," he joked at another point. "It's a crisis of identity."
Allies insist that the professor will take the seemingly impossible job of leading Italy in his stride. Yesterday, he was fielding more calls from around Italy and across the world. Tony Blair, German chancellor Angela Merkel and Brazil's president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva have all offered their congratulations on his victory so far.
Yesterday, he was enjoying a peaceful Easter Saturday with his family in Bologna. "The match is over. Now let's move on," he declared.
Whether this cautious academic is allowed to do so is a different matter.
Regards, Ivan
Ping!
the writers of this article, need treatment, they are suffering from the Peter Pan Syndrome
I guess the good news about the situation is that Italian governments rarely last for any considerable amount of time - they come and go. Hopefully Prodi will go - soon.
Thanks for posting MadIvan. Always interesting.
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