The first omens were not auspicious. As Italians went to vote for their 59th government in 54 years, they found lines long and ballots in such short supply that some polling places had to stay open until 4:00 a.m. to meet the demand. Yet as votes were counted, and center-left candidate Francesco Rutelli politely conceded defeat, the possibility emerged that Italy will have a more stable and confident regime under Berlusconi’s center-right House of Freedom coalition than it has known for more than a decade. Berlusconi’s Forza Italia Party, supported by his allies in the formerly fascist National Alliance of Gianfranco Fini, looked to have a solid majority in both houses of parliament.
Much will depend on how media baron Berlusconi, as prime minister, addresses issues about his coalition partners, his personal conflicts of interest and his problems with the courts that have provoked fear, and not a little loathing, in much of the rest of Europe.
One explosive political issue posed by Berlusconi’s coalition may have been solved by the voters. The most controversial figure in his alliance is Umberto Bossi, the rabble-rousing leader of the Northern League. Bossi formerly advocated secession for the richer northern regions of Italy and still spouts xenophobic rhetoric reminiscent of much-reviled far-right figures like France’s Jean-Marie Le Pen and Austria’s Jorg Haider. But Bossi’s party, it appears, failed to win the requisite 4 percent of the vote that would have allowed it to participate in the government.
Other problems, however, won’t go away easily-unless the 64-year-old Berlusconi decides that good government in Italy depends on the rule of laws that may not be kind to him, and that such governance is more important than his family’s control of the media empire he’s built.
Berlusconi-whose first center-right government collapsed in 1994 after just seven months-owns all three of Italy’s private television stations. As prime minister he would also control state television, giving him decisive influence on everything Italians watch. In the waning days of the campaign, Berlusconi promised to privatize state television and to place his own stations under control of two of his children. Not exactly a blind trust. Political analysts wryly wonder if the self-made billionaire-Italy’s richest man-would be able to stomach the serious competition for his own conglomerate that would result from privatization.
Berlusconi’s legal problems may prove more painful still. Analyst James Walston, at the American University of Rome, says that criminal prosecutions targeting Berlusconi may be his “biggest conflict of interest issue.” The new prime minister faces a June extradition hearing in Spain, where he has been accused of corruption and tax evasion charges linked to his Spanish television station Telecinco. The same Spanish judge who fought to extradite former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet from Britain has signaled that he has no intention of dropping the case against Berlusconi.
Nor is the Spanish case the only legal imbroglio that will complicate Berlusconi’s tenure in Rome. The new prime minister has, in fact, been convicted three times in Italy for fraud and corruption, but each conviction was overturned on appeal. There is also an ongoing trial accusing him of false accounting at his holding company Fininvest, and he is a witness in the case of Marcello Dell’Utri, formerly his right-hand man, who is in court on charges of allegedly aiding and abetting the Mafia. Political analysts wonder whether Berlusconi will attack Italian judges who, he says, are pursuing political agendas rather than justice.
Yet for all of Berlusconi’s problems, he could bring a much-needed respite from the staccato succession of prime ministers that has plagued the country for so long. “A coalition with a clear majority will be able to govern effectively,” says Walston, “and that is something Italians haven’t seen in recent years.”
