FT: Ruini parla delle difficolta' economiche, gesto verso il CS?

[robert jordan]

Berlusconi vows ‘no surrender’ to opposition
By Tony Barber in Rome
Published: April 6 2006 12:45 | Last updated: April 6 2006 12:45
Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister, vowed on Thursday that he would “never surrender” to the centre-left opposition and promised strong resistance in parliament even if he lost the general election on Sunday and Monday.
Mr Prodi, meanwhile, sought to unite his forces fully behind his leadership by warning that, if he became premier but was later toppled from power in an internal centre-left revolt, he would insist that Italy held a new election.
In an unusually candid reference to the possibility of defeat in the polls, Mr Berlusconi told a television interviewer: “I shall never surrender to this left. I feel as strong as a lion and I am sure of winning. But if there is a defeat, and I don’t believe there will be, it will be an absolutely hairline margin of defeat, and the left will have to reckon with us in parliament.”
Centre-left strategists said their data showed that the opposition was continuing to hold on to the lead of 3.5 to 5.0 percentage points that was registered in opinion polls before their publication was suspended on March 24.
Centre-right strategists contested this claim, and Mr Berlusconi told the final election rally of his Forza Italia party on Wednesday night that his polls gave the advantage to his ruling coalition.
Whichever side wins the election will have a majority of at least 50 seats in parliament’s lower house, because Mr Berlusconi passed a law last December that guarantees the victorious coalition 340 of the chamber’s 630 seats.
However, the picture could be more complicated in the upper house, where the application of somewhat different electoral rules means that the winner may not be the same coalition that controls the lower chamber. Such an outcome is likely to lead to a fresh election.
In an interview to be published on Friday with L’Espresso magazine, Mr Prodi said he would not allow a repetition of the events of 1998, when his government was brought down in a parliamentary revolt by a hardline communist party nominally on his own side.
“If I fall, or if my people make me fall, the government will fall, too. And there will be another election,” Mr Prodi said.
The implication of his warning was that the hardline communists and other potential future rebels should not think of betraying the election victory that now appears in his grasp.
In its final days, the campaign has focused on tax issues, Mr Berlusconi’s domination of Italian television, and the depiction by each side of the other as an uncivilised, unethical and financially irresponsible threat to democracy.
Mr Prodi, a practising Roman Catholic, took up arms on Thursday against a last-minute attempt by Mr Berlusconi to entice Catholic believers into the centre-right camp.
The premier told his final party rally that Catholics should think hard before voting for the opposition, because only his coalition stood for family values and would not allow same-sex marriages.
Mr Prodi hit back: “Faith is too important a thing to be manipulated in an electoral campaign.”
Mr Berlusconi’s 2001 election triumph rested partly, but not decisively, on the Catholic vote. Among Italians going to church every Sunday, 50.8 per cent voted for the centre-right and 39.1 per cent for the centre-left.
In this campaign, the Italian bishops have made clear their worries about the support of some centre-left parties for abortion, same-sex unions and other policies opposed by the Church.
On the other hand, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the head of the national bishops’ conference, has talked publicly of Italy’s recent economic difficulties, in what some analysts took as a gesture in the direction of the centre-left.

[Allanon]

Dopo tutto quello che il card. Ruini ha detto contro chi non difende i valori della vita e della famiglia, dubito che possa solo pensare di aprire un benché minimo spiraglio a sx. Il problema è: quanti lo ascolteranno?

[fischiailvento]

Il problema è: quanti lo ascolteranno?

Tutti quelli che legittimamente hanno delle convinzioni, ma hanno il torto di volerle imporre pure agli altri che la pensano diversamente.

Cioè una minoranza.

[fabrilio]

Tranquilli..ruini è col cdx..e sarà forse l'arma in più per il LAZIO...

[robert jordan]

Tranquilli..ruini è col cdx..e sarà forse l'arma in più per il LAZIO...

Ruini (con tutto il rispetto) e' come la confindustria, cioe' con chi vince.....

[trilex]

un gran rispetto proprio!


Cmq leggendo i commenti laicisti (detto da un laico) e visceralmente anticlericali, nn sarebbe male farli leggere alla componente dei "movimenti cattolici" (che fanno i numeri veri, non 4 gatti tipo Pax......) che tira x il csx, tipo l'azione cattolica.

Inutile ricordare che dall'altra parte l'organico e' piu' nutrito e non parlo solo di gruppi che "fanno" politica tipo: CL e Opus Dei, ma soprattutto nei gruppi (grossi e di cui si parla poco sui giornali) che non "fanno" politica.

[alexeievic]

iniziassero a stringere al cinghia anche loro... l'8 per mille fu concesso in tempi di vacche grasse craxiane... ora potrebbe essere tranquillamente ridotto al 6 o 5 per mille...