Silvio Berlusconi's troubles

Berlusconi v the city of women

A judge’s decision to commit the prime minister for trial on sex charges will hang over Italian politics for months

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Readers' comments




@Carl Byron Rodgers
I very much doubt that the Economist is unaware of the political leanings of any major newspaper in Europe. But anyway Repubblica is the second newspaper in Italy, circulated in abt 600.000 copies. Whether one likes its opinions or not, it is a reliable source of information on Mr B. (or it would be literally torn to pieces by bloody lawsuits from his lawyers.) Its reporters are among the most active professionals in Italy, and if they write that the prosecution is in possession of certain statements by Ms Karima you can be sure those statements exist and are freely available to the free press. The obedient press, on the other hand, instead of quoting facts, prefers to insult the judges and prosecutors on a daily basis, and generally spill venom on everybody except the most ardent admirers of Silvio Magno. Now can you see the Economist relying on Il Giornale, Libero or Il Foglio for information? If it were a comic, maybe.


I don't understand why you keep asking the same questions. I'll try to better explain my point.

What Violante calls South American ways is the fact that private telephone calls should be printed on the press. It does not happen in democracies.

Wheter or not is is done legally or illegaly is of little importance. Violante seems to imply that such barbarian practices are the consequence of stretching the interpretation of many laws. I tend to think this is the case.

The really important fact is that the whole practice is against basic liberal principles so much so that, as I told you, in Craxi's case Italy has been condemned by the European Court for Human Rights.

«The European Court of Human Rights observed that some of the conversations published in the press had been of a strictly private nature and had had little or no connection with the criminal charges brought against the applicant. In the Court's view, there had been no pressing social need to publish them».You may read more about that case here

As I also told you,  Lutwack at Anno Zero explained the american system: if private telephone calls were to be published there, the responsible would be condemned to 20 years in prison.

I think such basic Human Right's principles are much more important than Belusconi's parties. 


Ehud Olmert announced his resignation declaring "I want to make one thing clear: I am proud to be a citizen of a country in which a prime minister can be investigated like any other citizen. It is the duty of the police to investigate. It is the duty of the State Prosecutor's Office to instruct the police, and I have nothing against them for that. The prime minister is not above the law, but neither is he beneath it."

In Italy, politicians, all politicians, consider themselves as way above the law.
Shall we yet call that "democracy"?
True, mr Berlusconi was elected, as mr Ceausescu was, and as mr Ceausescu owns televisions and control information.


From the Financial Times : Lex Column. FT is one of the most respected business and financial newspapers. Food for thought for the readers of this blog!

Italy: another gerontocracy






Dissolving the parliament to oust the prime minister would be taking a political stance on the matter, which the President is not allowed to do (since he must be super partes).
And while Libyan or Egiptian situation could certianly be described as "chaotic and extreme", I frankly think that labeling the italian situation as such is really straining things.
Lets' face it: a sizeable part of the voters support the man nothwistanding its (many) faults, the government has a parliament majority, the opposition just tried a no-confidence vote and failed.
Trying other ways to go around the thing gives the impression of a childish beahviour, such a boy who, grudged to be on the losing side in a football match, grabs the ball and go home with it.


@Stefano De Santis, can you hear yourself? Have you stumbled upon the Mussolini "diaries" so misteriously recovered by that very upright character of Mr Dell'Utri? I suspect you spend long hours listening to the Duce's speeches, only that could explain your post.
We have actually been at war since 1922-that is from the day when we lifted the flag of our revolution, which was then defended by a handful of men against the Masonic, democratic, capitalistic world. ""We have actually been at war since 1922 (1994, in the case of Mr B.!!)[...] From that day world liberalism, democracy and plutocracy declared and waged war against us with press campaigns, spreading libelous reports, financial sabotage, attempts and plots even when we were intent upon the work of international reconstruction which is and will remain for centuries, as the undestroyable documentation of our creative will."" Benito Mussolini, Rome, Italy, February 23, 1941.
It seems written today, by you.

Carlo 1947

Reading all this on not only one foreign paper makes me ashamed to be Italian.
1. What astonishes myself it is not only an old man extravagance with a fix mind to sex and an endemic hate against anything that looks like a rule or a low, having lived on a side of the low for a life, as the “Berliner Zeitung” addressed as the reason of being Millionaire from nothing. I am 63 and I know by experience that this is impossible respecting the law.
2. What surprises me is the number of yes men which surrounds him, people which is neither coherent because since last week they where shouting that what Berlusconi does in his bedroom it is a private affair, and now that he is called in court, the same people says that this is only competence of the Ministers Court. What? A sexual affair is a Ministers Court Affair? an abuse of power should be judged by his own Ministers? I don't know now if it is a problem of coherence or a problem of money: if a prostitute is evaluated 5 Milion Euro, a parliament member is evaluated 350.000 Euro, what is the value of a Minister willing to support Berlusconi? The Italian Government is a market, no moral values.
3. The opposition is waiving, now looking for a wide alliance which should go from center-left to the little faithful xenophobic Northern League, to the right party of Mr. Casini, always ready to respond to a Berlusconi's call, if well evaluated. All this to forget the Mr. Vendola's offer of an alliance from a moderated and successful left, not well seen by Mr. D'Alema and his Democratic Party wing.

We may go soon to a poll, but in this nightmare the result is uncertain, even if today Berlusconi is at 30%, how much will he invest to buy a new election, center-left has only moral values no solid money to invest, unless they would do a campaign like Mr.Obama did, but times would be too tight.
The only exit would be a temporary government named by the President of the Republic which would make in a fixed period the essential laws to go to a respectable poll, like 3 things: the interdiction to the House of Parliament of anybody bringing an evident interests conflict, eliminate all the special laws to let escape Berlusconi from court, a civil poll counting law to have the MPs named directly by the electors and not by the Party's hierarchies.
I want to end my comment bringing two values: 17 years ago, when Berlusconi entered in Politics, the Berlusconi's affairs balance was -2.000 Millions Euro, today the same balance is +8.000 Millions Euro.

Marco Rubino

@stefano de santis. You write “The new law on justice is ready
1)the power of the minister of justice increased
2)the power of the PM decreased and partially shifted to police
3)the CSM mafia split in two part
4)civil responsibility of the magistrates
5)stop to free eavesdropping
6)probably, the comeback of the law on the IMMUNITA' PARLAMENTARE.”. I ask, is that right for the sake of one man? We have lots of serious and urgent problems in Italy (among all, the economic decline and the gap between the north and the south of Italy) and the Government agenda has been suddenly brought up to date to discuss the new law on justice. In order to solve the judicial problems of our Prime Minister we are going to dismantle the whole judicial system. And this in a country where three of the most powerful criminal organizations take root on the territory! As you know, in Italy possessing cocaine is illegal. I wonder what would happen if Mr Berlusconi were charged with drugs’ possession. Should we expect his government will pass a law to turn it legal?


Silvio B. is not a dictator... yet. But don't forget Hitler and Mussolini didn't win the elections by a vast majority. Mussolini, for example, in the last free elections we had in Italy at the time, with the other parties still running, had only 25% of votes, but could form a government, just like today, thanks to the "majority premium"... however this dirty procedure can be translated!
The fact that Silvio B. is supported by a (not any more) large chunk of italian population doesn't place him above the law. He may very well be the best loved politician in the world (you wish), he still has to respect the law just like anybody else, and appear in court if he does not.
Now, let's state for the last time that he is due in court because there is strong enough evidence that he paid a judge to rule in his favour over the Mondadori case, that he is involved in the murky affair of the wavebands aquisition for his tv, that he forced a number of high police officials to neglect their dury in his favour etc. etc... AND, to top it up, he very likely paid an underage girl to have sex with him. The fact that in Italy we are still talking about his old trials is because he has managed to postpone them all for years. Any normal citizen, even in our slow judicial system, would have been tried long ago.
He's playing with us, using all his money and might. He's corrupted to the core, you know it, I know it, we all know it. The only ones who are still giving him a chance to defend himself are his appointed prosecutors, the only people who will listen to his every word. The rest of us will fight him politically all the way to his resignation. Hopefully soon enough he's going to join his good friend Gheddafy and walk hand in hand into the sunset.

Marco Rubino

@ stefano de santis. I don’t agree: the law is general and will hit all the magistrates the “good” ones as the “evil” ones. Think of what would mean for our country to subdue Public Prosecutor to the Executive, with all the Mafia infiltrations have been proven to be in our Parliament. Think of what would mean to introduce civil responsibility of the magistrates in Mafia trails or in big company trials. After all, lets assume that all the trials against the Prime Minister are evilly contrived by some leftish judges. Do you believe it is politically and morally fair that the executive and the legislative power try to change the whole judiciary power in order to thwart the efforts of few judges?

stefano de santis

@FLAVIA1.REPUBBLICA a reliable source of information?You are offending the word"information".You must inform us why his owner DEBNEDETTI was JAILED FOR BRIBERY,selling 300 billions(in the years 80) of non working computers to the MINISTERO DELLE POSTE.That stuff is still rustling in the Poste depots.De Benedetti was later saved by your friends magistrates of the Left.Later,this champion of the civil rights and honest information turned swiss citizen to dodge taxes.This is REPUBBLICA:the officile voice of the illegality.WE THE PEOPLE electing Berlusconi have the right of knowing all that is needed about present and past of his owner.Inform us,FLAVIA 1,tell us the truth.This is the TRUE INFORMATION that we need.


ah but BrightTony wait, they have a word for everything, they call them catto-communist. Big Brother Silvio ha adopted his own doublespeak system, pretty shallow and easily exposed of course, but still, it's working for some...


This is how rich he is, and that's how it is that he can buy everything and everybody (and this without taking into account black funds and billions stashed away in off shore paradises). By the way, there's a new case the prosecutors are investigating these days: his offer of 150,000 euros each to buy a number of MP's in parliament, in order to have a stabler majority. Even for Italy this is unprecedented. He's an artist, one day he's buying young girls for sex and the day after he's at a catholic families rally declaring that he will defend the morality of the state schools from the "communist" ideology of the teachers (sic... and sick). This is how he's running the country, he's using methods that are unknown even in the most cinical of the westerner countries. The Italian foreign policy is not a foreign policy, it's his business policy: when he meets Putin it's so he can take care of his investments in gas companies, when he meets gheddafy he settles his affairs, he has arab business partners and caribbean entratures etc etc. He avoided appointing the foreign minister for so long in order to keep this duty for himself as an ad-interim minister so he had the excuse to go abroad and have personal talks with his various partners... and strange enough he NEVER travelled to places where he didn't have business going. What has Italy as a country got out of his running around. A big nothing. Our economy is the most stagnant of Europe, our school system is in tragic disarray, our companies are closing one after another and all his supporters will do is chant that we "communists" are envious of his wealth. There's no lunatic asylum good anough for them.

Marco Rubino

@ mailinutile. I don’t think so. Section nr. 88 of our Constitution gives the President of the Republic the power to dissolve the houses of parliament, and that’s that. The fact that so far in our Republic history the President has dissolved the Parliament only after the Executive hadn’t survived a confident vote is only a constitutional custom, it is not written in any constitutional law. So I won’t see any harm if, in a chaotic and extreme political situation, the Head of the State decides to dissolve the Parliament in order to call new elections. You point out rightly that some members of the opposition have recently gone back to the majority. This worries me, because if we consider that few months ago they seated in the majority seats, afterwards they set up a new party and now they come back to the majority, I believe our MPs themselves have no clear idea what part of the electorate they represent.


Ah yes, De Santis, just one more word, before I leave you in peace with your delusions: where did you get your idea that I was French? Can't you read my name? You keep harping on about meaningless French stuff which, even if somebody could understand it, is really beside the point, the point being a Silvio B. totally out of control. Completely nuts. Slurred speech and all. I think they keep a taxidermist in place to regularly top him up.
Don't be hurt.

stefano de santis

@FLAVIA 1,alias MARIE CLAUDE,alias LE BLEU BLANC ROUGE.The problem of you french is our foreign politics,and the success of it stressed by a memourable letter of the US ambassador SPOGLI to CORRIERE in date MARCH 25.Go to read it,you that are used to quote your sources.But try to hold on:it's a little bit painful,for you french.

Antonio Sinigaglia

To Stefano De Santis

Buying votes in Parliament? I am not that sure somebody from abroad is actually doing, I am more likely to suspect somebody else, say from the inside, those people you trust most, are. What about Putin and Bush, even someone else? I am not sure, although that may be true, Berlusconi was settling something useful for the country with those criminals. We know that striking some deals with a mobster such as Kaddafi, he achieved immigration from Africa being limited, to what cost, say in human lives and these people's dignity's respect, the way these Africans were treated by Lybians is another matter, isn't it? Something we are not obliged to pay attention to, are we? Foreign countries, with which we have an alliance and collaboration treaty, legitimately beware if somebody does something with those fellows, just to look if he ever was doing something which could betray them. Are B's parties a matter of his own? That is a foolish, even mean pretext to keep safe from an always deserved prosecution, by a man who never wanted to distinguish what is his private matter and what is public. Let aside (although very important) he never did anything to improve really Italy's problems, mainly its economy, a lot of people earn their modest...miserable living on a temporary job (even if they are older than thirty or even forty and they have also a University degree), living a wicked life is disgusting in itself. If somebody enjoys himself with underage girls he shall always be prosecuted, despite any pretext. Did he ever give any candidacy to anyone among these so called escorts (if it was another man's story they would have been called whores)? In this case he would not distinguish his private life from public one, anything else linked to this presumed story shall be verified. Are magistrates in any way unreliable...ah, they are plotting with the Left?. Come on, a man who has a dignity should at least have quit long ago with this mean baloney, everybody can believe what they wish (what they are most comfortable believing to), if I really believed to these stupid crime fiction tales I would be a fool!
In any way you can go on barking your unfounded arguments, for me that does not mean anything.

Marco Rubino

@ stefano de santis. Dear Stefano, I believe you do not live in Italy or perhaps you have not lived in our country for the last forty years, otherwise you wouldn’t dare to say that the presence of Mafiosi in our Parliament (and in our politics in general) are just “those defined this way by the bolshewics intruded in the magistratura”.


Marco Rubino wrote: [...] I believe that the only legal mean to dismiss a Prime Minister and to appoint a new one is trough elections. So I think that, in such a chaotic and extreme social and political situation, the Head of State, Pres. Napolitano, should dissolve Parliament and call new elections.

The point is that while the government has the majority in the parliament, the President dissolving the Parliament would be an abuse, too.
And while the majority is not that much, one must admit that has just survived a no-confidence vote and that it is slowly increasing (just yesterday another member left the opposition).
Resorting to "ask the President to dismiss the Parliament" in order to "dismiss the Prime Minister" is another example of attempting a not-so-legal shortcut (un colpo di palazzo).

stefano de santis

@MARCO RUBINO.Please read MAGISTRATI L'ULTRACASTA,STEFANO LIVADIOTTI(a journalist of that extreme berlusconian right that is the ESPRESSO)and tell me if those padreterni must or must not be put under some kind of control.The Parliament is the only sovereign power,the presence of mafiosi(who:those defined this way by the bolshewics intruded in the magistartura?) means that is illegal?Tell it clearly,and add that the left is intentioned to govern through shortcuts to democracy trrimming the Parliament itself.



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