Berlusconi's party stops Parliament for 24 hours to discuss his court ruling over tax fraud sentence

Back to Berlusconi’s trials again (I know, it's hard to keep track of them all).

We are now referring to the tax fraud sentence of his company Mediaset. Berlusconi was sentenced to 4 years for inflating the prices of movies the company bought in order to avoid taxes. He turned to the appeal court, and now Italy's highest court (the Court of Cassation) has set 30 July as the date for the hearing, a much earlier date than expected.
The Court explained that they had to choose such an early date because, according to the law, they had to prevent the statute of limitations from expiring on one of the charges.
Following that announce, Berlusconi’s lawyers claimed that this was an attack on the defence’s rights. His party’s The People of Freedom went beyond, claiming that this was a “coup d’état towards the government, Italy and democracy”. In other words, they are acting as if the court were doing this merely to convict Berlusconi.
Yesterday, The People of Freedom asked Parliament for an interruption of work, in order to discuss the case within the party.

It was a real political earthquake. The Democratic Party eventually had to accede, and both the Chambers of Deputies and the Senate stopped working for 24 hours, despite the protests of Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement.
It wasn’t an easy decision for the Democratic Party, which is really divided on the topic (as on any other topic, for what matters). Leader Epifani defined The People of Freedom’s request as “unacceptable and irresponsible”, but then tried to minimize the whole episode.
On the one hand, they had to give in because Berlusconi’s party is in government with them. On the other hand, they are looking worse each day. In any other country, someone like Berlusconi would have been voted out of Parliament a long time ago. In Italy, it is not even sure what will happen if a conviction actually is upheld.
Berlusconi’s party is threatening a government crisis if he is convicted. The Democratic Party is threatening to vote in favour of the conviction if it does take place. Long story short, everyone has something they can use to threaten their opponents. Parliament might not be blocked now, but that changed very little. It is still, only, discussing Berlusconi’s affairs. While the country sinks.

Berlusconi sentenced to 7 years and banned from public office in "Ruby" sex trial

In Italy, we are used to Berlusconi’s trials. Yet, they are still worth discussing.

Just last month, an appeals court confirmed his sentence for tax fraud over deals made by his TV firm Mediaset (http://italianfactsrd.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/berlusconi-sentenced-to-jail-for-major.html).

Today, the Milan Court sentenced him to 7 years in jail and banned him from public office for life, after finding him guilty of child prostitution and abuse of power.

 Silvio Berlusconi, Karima El Mahroug ("Ruby")

According to the Court, Berlusconi paid to have sex with a Moroccan girl, Karima El Mahroug (known as Ruby “the heart-stealer”), when she was only 17 (and he was aware of her age). He also allegedly pressured the Milan central police station in order to have her released when she was arrested for theft in May 2010. This episode became particularly famous in Italy, because in order to have her free Berlusconi said one of his most colossal lies: he told the police station to let her go because she was Mubarak’s niece (Mubarak being the former Egyptian president) and they had to avoid a diplomatic incident.

Berlusconi will not spend time in jail unless the sentence is confirmed by the appeals court, and this would take a very long time. Nevertheless, this sentence is historical for Italy because it will certainly have major repercussions on the current government, a grand coalition that cannot survive without the support of Berlusconi’s party.

A few days ago an MP from The People of Freedom claimed that the whole party would resign in case of a conviction. Even if this does not happen, the leftist Democratic Party will be asked to explain how they intend to remain in government with The People of Freedom, now that Berlusconi has been sentenced in (another) trial.

Berlusconi’s sentence is the most attention-grabbing recent event in Italian politics. Letta’s government is doing very little but stalling (see the Financial Times “Letta’s lethargy”).

Now, in a country where government crises happen for much less, this sentence may bring us back to the polls even earlier than we expected. 

Mario Borghezio expelled from European Parliamentary Group for racist comments

If nothing has been posted on this blog over the last weeks, it certainly isn't for lack of things to talk about: it was that time of the year when university students in the UK have no choice but spending all their time studying for their finals. But finals are over now, and I finally have time to write again. 

So many things happened in Italy over this last month that I'm not even going to try to cover everything now. Some of the major pieces of news would only sound out of date, such as the death of Giulio Andreotti, former PM and main protagonist of the (many) year of Christian Democrats hegemony in the postwar period. Then there was the appointment of the new leader of the Democratic Party, Guglielmo Epifani, following Bersani's resignation. Then the new judicial hearings of Berlusconi's trial, in which he is accused of child prostitution. Then the local elections and the impressive turnout decline. 

Voting behaviour and turnout are in fact one of the aspects of political science that I enjoy the most, and I had been expecting a fall in turnout in Italy for a while now. Italy has a record of really high turnout rates, but disengagement from politics and the idea that politicians are "all the same" usually lead to the feeling that your vote does not change anything, and as a consequence many people do not bother to vote. The Italian public has undoubtedly grown alienated about their representatives, and this has indeed really been a dramatic decrease in turnout, which was down by 20% in some cases. Now some cities will have to go back to the polls for the second ballot to choose their mayor, included the capital Rome and my hometown Brescia. 

However, the breaking news I am interested in today is the expulsion of Mario Borghezio from the European Parliament. I'll admit that I myself signed the petition that led to his suspension and then to his expulsion, and I think that this is a very positive sign for democracy. 

Mario Borghezio

Mario Borghezio, 65, is a member of the Northern League, and he had been a MEP since 2001.

Borghezio has been involved in some highly controversial episodes. He has been seen “disinfecting” train seats after immigrants had been sitting on them; in 2005, he was found guilty of arson, for setting fire to the pallets of some migrants sleeping under a bridge in Turin; in 2011, he even seemed to justify Anders Breivik’s massacre by claiming that it was due to Norway’s multi-racial society. He was temporarily suspended by his party for these last remarks, but I bet that in any other country they would be enough to sign the end of a political career.

Lately, he made himself known for insulting the new Minister for Integration, Congolese-born Cecile Kyenge. He claimed that she was “a s**t choice”, that she looked like a “housewife”, that she would impose “tribal traditions” in Italy and that Enrico Letta’s government is a “bonga bonga” government (I wouldn’t even know how to translate that, but I guess that is not necessary). 

A petition started from the Italian think tank Articolo21 asking for Borghezio’s resignation was signed by more than 130.000 people, and in May it was presented to European Parliament President Martin Schulz, who claimed that Borghezio’s words about Kyenge were “unacceptable”. 

Following that, Borghezio was suspended by the Eurosceptic group “Europe of Freedom and Democracy”. Today, it has been officially announced that the group expelled him.

What I find somehow ironic is that the party which was crucial in determining Borghezio’s expulsion is the British UKIP. UKIP in Italy is considered as the British counterpart of the Northern League (a racist, anti-immigration party). Yet, its leader Nigel Farage was the one who made the formal proposal to vote for Borghezio’s expulsion, which was achieved with a majority of over two-thirds. 

A small victory for participatory democracy, which hopefully will both restore (at least some) of people’s faith in politics and stop other politicians from following Borghezio’s steps.

Second term for Giorgio Napolitano and Enrico Letta as new PM for the grand coalition (or “inciucio”?)

Revising for my finals is taking up virtually all my time, but now it is absolutely necessary to write a post.

Let’s take it from the election of the new President of the Republic. Who is he, by the way? Easy to remember: the same as before, Giorgio Napolitano, to turn 88 this June.

The Italian President is elected by Parliament. To be elected during one of the first three votes, the candidate needs to reach a threshold of 2/3 of votes. This is because our Constitution encourages the whole Parliament to elect a President who is vastly approved. However, after the third vote the candidate only needs a majority to win.

During the election of the new President, we witnessed almost a breakup of the Partito Democratico. As an Italian comedian said: “The Democratic Party suggested a candidate (=Franco Marini), then the right voted for him, and the left did not!”.  That is in fact correct: since the vote for a President is free and secret, one does not have to align to the party’s line.  The Democratic Party proposed Franco Marini, who was voted by Berlusconi’s party too, and who should have easily reached the threshold of the 2/3. But he didn’t, because a lot of MPs from the Democratic Party in the end defected and did not vote for him. And so Marini stepped down.

Following that, the Democratic Party suggested Romano Prodi, former PM. Despite the fact that the right did not approve of him, the party was supposed to vote for him in a cohesive way, but again they didn’t. And Prodi stepped down too, after accusing his party of causing him a really poor figure.

Meanwhile, Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement, which had held an online vote to decide their candidate for the presidency, was pressing for Stefano Rodotà. Rodotà has a left-wing background and he is an esteemed jurist, but, for some reasons that they never explained very convincingly, the Democratic Party would not vote for him.

After two days of pointless votes, on 20^th of April the Italian Parliament (still without a government at the time) asked Giorgio Napolitano to stand as a candidate again. He accepted, and he was elected by a very vast majority. Napolitano is the first President in the history of the Italian Republic to serve on a second term. His re-election has been criticised under several points of view; above all, he is really old, and he had always claimed that he did not want to stand again. On the other hand, there were a lot of people praising him for his courageous sacrifice and his commitment to the nation. I am not the most qualified person to address his decision to be re-elected, but I sincerely wish for him to stay in good health. Regardless of what one might think of Napolitano, he has been, and he still is, going through a lot, and even if I am talking about politics, I find it hard not to feel empathy for someone who might not finish his term of presidency alive and yet accepted the job.

When Napolitano gave his acceptance speech, he was really harsh towards the parties which have been unable to deliver reforms, included a new electoral law (ironically, the very same parties cheered and applauded him a lot while he was saying so).

Then Napolitano called Enrico Letta (46-year-old and relatively low-profile) from the Democratic Party, to be the new PM of a grand coalition which will include Berlusconi’s party too, in order to have a majority in both chambers.

Giorgio Napolitano and Enrico Letta

Today Letta announced the members of his Cabinet. It is immediately evident that Berlusconi will play again a fundamental role in the country’s politics, as proved by the assignment of some key portfolios to members of his party. Above all, Angelino Alfano, Berlusconi’s pupil, is the new Home Secretary.

Here you will find the list of all the Ministers and information about Letta: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22323850- Italy PM-designate Enrico Letta agrees new government

To conclude this long post, I have a brief consideration. Studying Politics here in the UK, when I heard the phrase “grand coalition” and when I learned that in some countries it is possible for the left and the right to govern together effectively, I was pleasantly surprised. I found it really democratic, and a great sign of cooperation for the sake of the country. In other words, I saw it in a very positive light. But in Italy, the most common word  used to translate “grand coalition” is “inciucio”, which more or less I would translate with “dirty deal”. There is actually a sort of rebellion towards the Democratic Party, because it was not able to gain the support of the Five Star Movement, and now is forming an alliance with Berlusconi, who should be their archenemy.  

I have no troubles understanding why this is the case: Berlusconi destroyed the Italian right and replaced it with the cult of his own person. And when he was in government, he never failed to take care of his own trials or businesses before anything else. For an honest party, agreeing to cooperate with him is political suicide. And a “grand coalition”, in Italy, becomes a dirty deal. 

Italian electoral system: how the "Porcellum" works

Some of you might still be puzzled by the political stall that resulted in Italy following the general election. This is due to several factors; one of them, as I already wrote, I think is the fact that the Democratic Party 's candidate was not someone like Matteo Renzi, and a lot of people who wanted some new faces ended up voting for Beppe Grillo. Another factor is Berlusconi's return, since he still has a lot of fans who will remain faithful to him, no matter what.

But the main cause for this mess is, according to many, the Italian electoral system.

I already wrote a post about this several months ago, when the media and every political party discussed the possibility of electoral reform. Possibility that, nevertheless, never came true.

So, in the last election, we still voted with our current electoral system. I have never heard a single person claiming that this is a good system. The "ten wise men" appointed by President Napolitano keep repeating that their priority must be an electoral reform. What we all wonder is why they have not done it yet if they really wanted to, since this could easily have been done during the last year of Monti's government.

The current system is generally known as "porcellum", which means "pig" in Latin. It was renamed by political analyst Giovanni Sartori, after being defined "porcata" by Roberto Calderoli, member of the Northern League and Minister who wrote the law during the last Berlusconi’s government. "Porcata" is a noun which more or less could be translated as "something so bad that it could have been made by a pig”. Rubbish, in other words.

Roberto Calderoli

The current electoral system is a variant of proportional representation, usually known as “party-list proportional representation”. In this system, it is up to the parties to make a list of the candidates that might be elected, and seats are allocated to each party in proportion to the number of votes the party gets. However, the Italian system ensures a “plurality bonus" for the party, or coalition, which gets the greatest number of votes. In other words, over 50% of seats are ensured for the first winning party (or coalition), even if that party got, let's say, 30% of votes, and this implies that the system loses much in terms of proportionality.

The system has closed lists: voters cannot express their preferences for candidates, all the choices are made by the parties. Because of this, Parliament is filled with people who would have never been re-elected if the choice were left to voters.

But what caused the chaos we are witnessing now is the fact that the voting system differs for the two chambers of Parliament: in the lower chamber, the Chamber of Deputies, seats are allocated on a national basis; but in the upper house, the Senate, seats are allocated only on a regional basis, and this turns Lombardy, the most populated region, in a sort of "Italian Ohio". This also means that the system is quite biased in favour of the Northern League, that is very strong in Lombardy. Plus, whereas the threshold in the lower chamber is 4% for single lists and 10% for coalitions, in the Senate it is 8% for single lists and 20% for coalitions.

In other words, it is really difficult for a party to secure a majority in both chambers and, considering the perfectly equal distribution of powers between chambers in Italy, this can be a real issue. This is why Bersani failed to form a government: he had a majority in the lower chamber but, because of the different counting system, he did not have one in the Senate.

Now, we are all waiting to find out whether the "ten wise men" will actually suggest an electoral reform and, if they do, how the new system will look like.

Bersani's failure, the "white semester" and Napolitano's "ten wise men"

I went to Italy for the first time since the election, and it was more or less like being slapped in the face. I would have never guessed that the stall situation would last this long, and most of all, that there would be absolutely no way out.

I arrived here in Italy on Friday. By that day, Pierluigi Bersani, leader of the left coalition, had already given up and had told Giorgio Napolitano, President of the Republic, that he was unable to form a government as he did not receive enough support in Parliament. Napolitano had indeed asked him to find out whether he had a majority; if he did, he would have become PM. But that attempt led to a stall. Bersani tried to persuade Beppe Grillo's Five Star Movement to support a potential left government, but all he got from Grillo were swear words. Meanwhile, Berlusconi's party called for a government "of broad agreements", which means a coalition of the main leftwing party and the main rightwing party. But Bersani immediately said no to that. On the other hand, Grillo called for a Five Star Movement government, but this option was never taken seriously by the President.

So, since nobody had been able to find a solution, it was again Napolitano's turn. On Friday night, the situation was so chaotic and looking so desperate, that the media started to talk about the possibility of Napolitano's resignation. 

 President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano

The President, who is elected by parliament since Italy is a parliamentary system, is on a seven-years mandate. During those seven-years, he normally has the power to dissolve parliament. So, generally speaking, the President could simply say "Let's have another election". But this is where things get even more complicated: Napolitano is coming to the end of his mandate, which is due in May 2013, and during the last months of office a President is in the so called "white semester". In the "white semester", a President's powers are more limited, and he cannot, among the others, dissolve parliament. This is why on Friday night the media was hypothesising an early end to Napolitano's mandate: in other words, before forming the government, the parliament would have chosen the new President, who then would have been able to call for a new election. All I could think while listening to the news was "First the Pope, then Napolitano?!".

But this is not what happened. After what I am assuming was the longest night of his life, Napolitano announced on Saturday morning that we was going to stay in office until the very end, because he could at least try "to create more favourable conditions" for future decisions.

This is what the President decided: Mario Monti, the appointed technocratic PM, remains in office with his cabinet (Monti indeed spontaneously resigned, but was never formally  voted down by parliament); Napolitano then appointed two special commissions whose task is to come up with "programmatic proposals of institutional-social and economic character", which, ideally, should be approved by all parties. My understanding is that Monti's government and these commissions should remain in power at least until the new President is elected, then, possibly, we might vote again.

While I think that Napolitano was able to find a temporary solution which saved Italy from another poor figure (as his resignation would undoubtedly have been), I am appalled by some of the people that he appointed among those "ten wise men" who are supposed to perform some sort of miracle. Apart the fact that they are all men (really? Not even a wise woman in Italy?) and aged 70 or more, virtually all of them are representatives of the old ruling class, even though not all of them are politicians. To me, they look very unlikely to bring about any real change.

Here is a list of the "ten wise men":

-Prof Valerio Onida - University of Milan constitutional law expert
-Luciano Volante - former parliament speaker from Pier Luigi Bersani's party
-Mario Mauro - senator in Mario Monti's party
-Gaetano Quagliariello - senator in Silvio Berlusconi's party
-Prof Enrico Giovannini - statistics agency ISTAT head
-Giovanni Pitruzzella - Market Competition Authority head
-Salvatore Rossi - Bank of Italy deputy head
-Enzo Moavero Milanesi - European Affairs minister
-Giancarlo Giorgetti and Filippo Bubbico - parliament commission heads

BBC article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21981679

Partito Democratico: born to lose? And what if Renzi were the candidate?

I know I am a little late, but I said that I would write a comment about the Italian elections and I intend to do so. Hundreds of articles have been written; if you want to read a quite opinionated one, the following by The Economist, titled “Send in the clowns” (referring to Silvio Berlusconi and Beppe Grillo) can give you a pretty good idea.

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21572763-how-beppe-grillo-and-silvio-berlusconi-threaten-future-italy-and-euro-send

Therefore, much has been said about Berlusconi’s comeback and about former comedian Beppe Grillo’s huge success. Less has been said about the poor result of the Partito Democratico (“Democratic Party”), the left-wing party which was considered the favourite and which, according to polls, should have won by a comfortable majority. Why did it only get a miserable 31% then?

In my modest opinion, because Partito Democratico is born to lose. And it seems to do so almost intentionally.

The party held a primary to choose its candidate, and party leader Pierluigi Bersani won against Matteo Renzi, mayor of Florence. 

Pierluigi Bersani and Matteo Renzi

Fair enough, you might think, if Bersani won, he won. True, yet the following thing needs to be considered. The whole party was against Renzi. They tried in every possible way to politically kill him, they even labelled him “Berlusconiano” because he had lunch with Berlusconi once. Why did they hate Renzi so much? Because Renzi has always campaigned for political renewal. If he were PM, he would seriously send home all the old party militants who still sit in Parliament only because of party lists.

So, the party chose to secure seats for its old folks, while blissfully ignoring that there are a lot of people out there who are fed up with old parties and old politicians, and who would have warmly welcomed a young (he is only 38) and energetic candidate such as Renzi.  I think that what people in Italy really wanted was change. And I believe that, if Partito Democratico had pushed for Renzi and supported him as a candidate, today we would have a completely different picture.  

If Renzi were the candidate, a lot of people who voted for Grillo, or who did not vote at all, would have voted for him. I am sure of it, even if a lot of people are, I think, somehow ashamed to admit so. But I have also heard from a lot of friends the sentence “Well I love Renzi and I would have definitely voted for him, but Bersani… oh no, God no”.

But the party greatly underestimated how tired people are. And they literally gave away to Grillo’s movement millions of votes.

As a result, everything is a mess now.  I am not saying that we deserved it, but certainly Partito Democratico did. Let’s see if they learn the lesson now.

As comedian Maurizio Crozza said yesterday, “We are doing really badly now without a government. Almost as much as we did when we had one”.