John Galt
12-08-10, 11:56
Italy's political crisis
A FLI in his ear
Gianfranco Fini, long a thorn in Silvio Berlusconi’s side, finally breaks from the Italian prime minister
Aug 5th 2010 | ROME
http://www.economist.com/sites/default/files/images/images-magazine/2010/32/eu/201032eup007.jpg
SAFE. For now. On August 4th Italy’s prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, won a ballot in the Chamber of Deputies in a first test of his parliamentary standing after a quirky, incomplete but potentially lethal rebellion in the ranks of his party.
The lower house voted by 299 to 229 in the government’s favour. But there were 75 abstentions, including most of the rebels, and Mr Berlusconi will not need to be told that they could have defeated his government had they chosen to vote against it.
As this was parliament’s last vote before the summer recess, Mr Berlusconi’s survival is assured for now. But he lives on as a prisoner of Gianfranco Fini (pictured left), chief mutineer and a man he has come to detest. His government’s chances of lasting the year have diminished.
Trouble had long been brewing inside the governing People of Freedom (PdL) movement, as relations deteriorated between the prime minister and Mr Fini, who for 16 years stood at his side. It was Mr Fini who led Italy’s neo-fascists into an alliance with Mr Berlusconi that in 1994 carried the right into government for the first time since the war. It was he who last year hesitantly fused his by now “post-fascist” party with Mr Berlusconi’s to form the PdL. Mr Fini, re-cast as a liberal conservative, has been protesting ever since: about the autocratic way Mr Berlusconi runs the PdL; about the prime minister’s disdain for parliament; about PdL policies he says are too conservative; and about Mr Berlusconi’s habit of instantly backing allegedly corrupt government ministers. Mr Fini and his followers also watered down a bill dear to the prime minister’s heart that would have limited the use of eavesdropping by police and prosecutors and stopped newspapers publishing the resulting transcripts.
But if Mr Berlusconi was itching to crush his former ally, Mr Fini was longing to break with the prime minister without seeming too much of a traitor or victim. On July 29th both men thought they saw an opportunity. Only one was right.
After Mr Berlusconi declared that his internal critics did not have the parliamentary numbers to overturn his government, Mr Fini gave an interview implicitly confirming that assessment by apparently surrendering. The prime minister swiftly called a meeting of the PdL leadership to approve a document condemning Mr Fini and his fellow-dissenters.
http://www.economist.com/sites/default/files/images/images-magazine/2010/32/eu/201032euc040.gif
It was a trap. Mr Berlusconi’s aides had put the number of rebels in the chamber as low as 26. The next day, Mr Fini announced the formation of a new lower-house parliamentary group, Future and Freedom (FLI). It had 33 members, enough to strip the prime minister of his majority (see chart). A ten-strong FLI group was later created in the Senate. Mr Berlusconi’s majority there is safe, though slimmer (in both chambers, the arithmetic is bedevilled by independents and small parties in so-called “Mixed Groups”).
Mr Fini said his followers would only vote against government legislation that was at odds with the PdL’s electoral manifesto. But this will be scant reassurance for a prime minister who must now seek his internal critics’ approval for every bill passed by his cabinet.
Neither the rebels nor Mr Fini resigned from the party. Some FLI members remain in the government. Mr Fini, who as lower-house speaker does not normally vote, must nominally stay under the PdL whip.
A few questions, Mr Fini
That points to a first question about the man who has caged Mr Berlusconi. Can someone with such an active role in party manoeuvring honourably remain in a post that demands impartiality and gives the holder sway over the parliamentary agenda? Mr Fini brushed aside such concerns and was soon exploiting his powers to discomfort the government, allotting parliamentary time to this week’s opposition motion. Mr Berlusconi responded by hinting that he would resign if he lost.
The motion demanded the government take away the portfolio of a junior justice minister, Giacomo Caliendo. Though a suspect in a criminal inquiry, Mr Caliendo has not resigned. The approach to the debate raised a second question about Mr Fini. He had earlier said anyone formally placed under investigation by prosecutors should not “hold on to political posts”. But on August 3rd most FLI deputies said they would abstain. In the event 25 of the 33 abstained. Of the rest, two, both ministers, voted with the government, two, also ministers, were absent on government business, and four were not present for the vote, with no explanation given. Not a convincing debut for a faction meant to be tough on sleaze.
A third question about Mr Fini was raised in Il Giornale, a newspaper owned by Silvio Berlusconi’s brother. The paper said a flat in Monte Carlo willed to Mr Fini’s old party had been sold at a knock-down price to the first of several offshore companies. One now rents it to the brother of Mr Fini’s partner, it said. Mr Fini has threatened to sue for libel. But he has not yet offered a detailed rebuttal of the newspaper’s claims.
The FLI agreed on its abstention policy this week with three other parties, including the Union of Christian and Centre Democrats (UDC), a conservative opposition group. Could this pact grow into a third force in Italian politics? No, say Mr Fini’s acolytes, who argue that his real aim is a modernised right, rather than an old-style, Christian Democrat-based centre.
Not that that will relieve the pressure on Mr Berlusconi when parliament reconvenes in September. Sooner or later, he may want to go to the polls for a renewed mandate. But under Italian law he cannot dissolve parliament. That prerogative belongs to President Giorgio Napolitano, who may want a transitional, technocratic government to guarantee stability.
Indeed, as the Italian political year built to a characteristically theatrical finale, scarcely anyone except Mr Berlusconi recalled that Italy’s public-debt levels, as a percentage of GDP, are among the highest in the world; that its public finances are acutely dependent on the yield investors demand for holding its bonds; that yields normally rise with political instability; and that investors have seldom been warier of southern European sovereign debt. When this odd, slow-motion crisis resumes in the autumn, it could be about more than who heads the government.
Italy's political crisis: A FLI in his ear | The Economist (http://www.economist.com/node/16743353)
Berlusconi on the ropes
Signor Fini, where do you stand?
Italian politics has entered a new, unstable phase. Time for its most talented politician to show his true mettle
Aug 5th 2010
http://www.economist.com/sites/default/files/images/images-magazine/2010/32/ld/201032ldp002.jpg
VICTORY for Silvio Berlusconi can rarely have tasted so bitter. On August 4th a junior minister from his People of Freedom party (PdL) faced a vote of censure in parliament over an alleged scheme to rig judicial and political posts. The prime minister’s man won, but thanks largely to the abstention of 25 PdL deputies allied to Gianfranco Fini, who had ended months of bickering by breaking with Mr Berlusconi a few days earlier. Mr Fini did not need to press home his advantage to spell out that the PdL can no longer count on winning a majority. Only two years into his five-year term, Mr Berlusconi now governs at Mr Fini’s pleasure. The question is, what does Mr Fini plan to do with his power?
Such a long journey, so far still to travel
You do not need to be as critical of Italy’s PM-cum-mogul as this newspaper has been to welcome Mr Fini’s challenge. Of late, Italian politics has featured almost as much sex and crime as the evening schedule on a Berlusconi television channel. That would not matter so much if Italy were thriving. Yet, even as the economy has lost competitiveness over the years, the PdL and its precursor, Forza Italia, have neglected reform. Instead they have been absorbed in serving Mr Berlusconi’s narrow concerns—to gain a reprieve from the law, say, or to help a favoured interest. Mr Berlusconi kept Italy’s budget under control and last week his government belatedly passed an austerity bill, but it was long on cuts and short on reform. The prime minister’s fans say that under him Italy has enjoyed rare stability, but what use is stability if you do nothing with it?
Related items
The church and the law: Calling time on theocracy
Aug 5th 2010
Mr Fini is more socially liberal, keen for example to limit the Catholic church’s influence over Italians’ lives (see article). He has also taken a stand against corruption. Whereas Mr Berlusconi has repeatedly attacked the judiciary and sought to frustrate their inquiries by tinkering with the law, Mr Fini has argued that any office-holder who becomes a formal suspect should always stand aside—which arguably gives magistrates too much power. Most of all, Mr Fini wants a party that is not just a vehicle for Mr Berlusconi, but one that can weave policy from the hopes and ideas of all its members.
Yet doubts remain. Although Mr Fini says some of the right things, does he say them for the right reasons? The easiest worry to put to rest is over his origins as a neo-fascist. His praise long ago for Mussolini was indeed contemptible, but if there is such a thing as redemption in politics Mr Fini deserves his chance. In a political journey lasting many years, Mr Fini has trekked to the centre-ground. In the process he has visited Israel and Auschwitz, jettisoned neo-fascist true believers, including his wife, repeatedly denounced Mussolini’s crimes and formed the PdL with Mr Berlusconi.
Less easy to shake off are the scheming and dirigisme. Although Mr Fini has courage, he is capable of breathtaking inconsistency—just take the abstention in this week’s vote. Never mind that it contradicted his policy that office-holders under formal suspicion should resign; Mr Fini does not want an election before the voters are familiar with his new party. He also betrays an admiration for the corporatism of Nicolas Sarkozy.
Mr Fini is probably Italy’s most able politician. He has skilfully plotted and schemed his way to the top, using power to win power. But if, as is now likely, the fag-end of Mr Berlusconi’s premiership soon burns out and the president calls an election, Mr Fini will need to start using power to get something done for the good of Italians, not Gianfranco Fini. That will demand not just guile and a sharp instinct for survival, but other, more noble attributes, including consistency and principle. It is time for Mr Fini to show that he possesses these too.
http://www.economist.com/node/16743313
A FLI in his ear
Gianfranco Fini, long a thorn in Silvio Berlusconi’s side, finally breaks from the Italian prime minister
Aug 5th 2010 | ROME
http://www.economist.com/sites/default/files/images/images-magazine/2010/32/eu/201032eup007.jpg
SAFE. For now. On August 4th Italy’s prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, won a ballot in the Chamber of Deputies in a first test of his parliamentary standing after a quirky, incomplete but potentially lethal rebellion in the ranks of his party.
The lower house voted by 299 to 229 in the government’s favour. But there were 75 abstentions, including most of the rebels, and Mr Berlusconi will not need to be told that they could have defeated his government had they chosen to vote against it.
As this was parliament’s last vote before the summer recess, Mr Berlusconi’s survival is assured for now. But he lives on as a prisoner of Gianfranco Fini (pictured left), chief mutineer and a man he has come to detest. His government’s chances of lasting the year have diminished.
Trouble had long been brewing inside the governing People of Freedom (PdL) movement, as relations deteriorated between the prime minister and Mr Fini, who for 16 years stood at his side. It was Mr Fini who led Italy’s neo-fascists into an alliance with Mr Berlusconi that in 1994 carried the right into government for the first time since the war. It was he who last year hesitantly fused his by now “post-fascist” party with Mr Berlusconi’s to form the PdL. Mr Fini, re-cast as a liberal conservative, has been protesting ever since: about the autocratic way Mr Berlusconi runs the PdL; about the prime minister’s disdain for parliament; about PdL policies he says are too conservative; and about Mr Berlusconi’s habit of instantly backing allegedly corrupt government ministers. Mr Fini and his followers also watered down a bill dear to the prime minister’s heart that would have limited the use of eavesdropping by police and prosecutors and stopped newspapers publishing the resulting transcripts.
But if Mr Berlusconi was itching to crush his former ally, Mr Fini was longing to break with the prime minister without seeming too much of a traitor or victim. On July 29th both men thought they saw an opportunity. Only one was right.
After Mr Berlusconi declared that his internal critics did not have the parliamentary numbers to overturn his government, Mr Fini gave an interview implicitly confirming that assessment by apparently surrendering. The prime minister swiftly called a meeting of the PdL leadership to approve a document condemning Mr Fini and his fellow-dissenters.
http://www.economist.com/sites/default/files/images/images-magazine/2010/32/eu/201032euc040.gif
It was a trap. Mr Berlusconi’s aides had put the number of rebels in the chamber as low as 26. The next day, Mr Fini announced the formation of a new lower-house parliamentary group, Future and Freedom (FLI). It had 33 members, enough to strip the prime minister of his majority (see chart). A ten-strong FLI group was later created in the Senate. Mr Berlusconi’s majority there is safe, though slimmer (in both chambers, the arithmetic is bedevilled by independents and small parties in so-called “Mixed Groups”).
Mr Fini said his followers would only vote against government legislation that was at odds with the PdL’s electoral manifesto. But this will be scant reassurance for a prime minister who must now seek his internal critics’ approval for every bill passed by his cabinet.
Neither the rebels nor Mr Fini resigned from the party. Some FLI members remain in the government. Mr Fini, who as lower-house speaker does not normally vote, must nominally stay under the PdL whip.
A few questions, Mr Fini
That points to a first question about the man who has caged Mr Berlusconi. Can someone with such an active role in party manoeuvring honourably remain in a post that demands impartiality and gives the holder sway over the parliamentary agenda? Mr Fini brushed aside such concerns and was soon exploiting his powers to discomfort the government, allotting parliamentary time to this week’s opposition motion. Mr Berlusconi responded by hinting that he would resign if he lost.
The motion demanded the government take away the portfolio of a junior justice minister, Giacomo Caliendo. Though a suspect in a criminal inquiry, Mr Caliendo has not resigned. The approach to the debate raised a second question about Mr Fini. He had earlier said anyone formally placed under investigation by prosecutors should not “hold on to political posts”. But on August 3rd most FLI deputies said they would abstain. In the event 25 of the 33 abstained. Of the rest, two, both ministers, voted with the government, two, also ministers, were absent on government business, and four were not present for the vote, with no explanation given. Not a convincing debut for a faction meant to be tough on sleaze.
A third question about Mr Fini was raised in Il Giornale, a newspaper owned by Silvio Berlusconi’s brother. The paper said a flat in Monte Carlo willed to Mr Fini’s old party had been sold at a knock-down price to the first of several offshore companies. One now rents it to the brother of Mr Fini’s partner, it said. Mr Fini has threatened to sue for libel. But he has not yet offered a detailed rebuttal of the newspaper’s claims.
The FLI agreed on its abstention policy this week with three other parties, including the Union of Christian and Centre Democrats (UDC), a conservative opposition group. Could this pact grow into a third force in Italian politics? No, say Mr Fini’s acolytes, who argue that his real aim is a modernised right, rather than an old-style, Christian Democrat-based centre.
Not that that will relieve the pressure on Mr Berlusconi when parliament reconvenes in September. Sooner or later, he may want to go to the polls for a renewed mandate. But under Italian law he cannot dissolve parliament. That prerogative belongs to President Giorgio Napolitano, who may want a transitional, technocratic government to guarantee stability.
Indeed, as the Italian political year built to a characteristically theatrical finale, scarcely anyone except Mr Berlusconi recalled that Italy’s public-debt levels, as a percentage of GDP, are among the highest in the world; that its public finances are acutely dependent on the yield investors demand for holding its bonds; that yields normally rise with political instability; and that investors have seldom been warier of southern European sovereign debt. When this odd, slow-motion crisis resumes in the autumn, it could be about more than who heads the government.
Italy's political crisis: A FLI in his ear | The Economist (http://www.economist.com/node/16743353)
Berlusconi on the ropes
Signor Fini, where do you stand?
Italian politics has entered a new, unstable phase. Time for its most talented politician to show his true mettle
Aug 5th 2010
http://www.economist.com/sites/default/files/images/images-magazine/2010/32/ld/201032ldp002.jpg
VICTORY for Silvio Berlusconi can rarely have tasted so bitter. On August 4th a junior minister from his People of Freedom party (PdL) faced a vote of censure in parliament over an alleged scheme to rig judicial and political posts. The prime minister’s man won, but thanks largely to the abstention of 25 PdL deputies allied to Gianfranco Fini, who had ended months of bickering by breaking with Mr Berlusconi a few days earlier. Mr Fini did not need to press home his advantage to spell out that the PdL can no longer count on winning a majority. Only two years into his five-year term, Mr Berlusconi now governs at Mr Fini’s pleasure. The question is, what does Mr Fini plan to do with his power?
Such a long journey, so far still to travel
You do not need to be as critical of Italy’s PM-cum-mogul as this newspaper has been to welcome Mr Fini’s challenge. Of late, Italian politics has featured almost as much sex and crime as the evening schedule on a Berlusconi television channel. That would not matter so much if Italy were thriving. Yet, even as the economy has lost competitiveness over the years, the PdL and its precursor, Forza Italia, have neglected reform. Instead they have been absorbed in serving Mr Berlusconi’s narrow concerns—to gain a reprieve from the law, say, or to help a favoured interest. Mr Berlusconi kept Italy’s budget under control and last week his government belatedly passed an austerity bill, but it was long on cuts and short on reform. The prime minister’s fans say that under him Italy has enjoyed rare stability, but what use is stability if you do nothing with it?
Related items
The church and the law: Calling time on theocracy
Aug 5th 2010
Mr Fini is more socially liberal, keen for example to limit the Catholic church’s influence over Italians’ lives (see article). He has also taken a stand against corruption. Whereas Mr Berlusconi has repeatedly attacked the judiciary and sought to frustrate their inquiries by tinkering with the law, Mr Fini has argued that any office-holder who becomes a formal suspect should always stand aside—which arguably gives magistrates too much power. Most of all, Mr Fini wants a party that is not just a vehicle for Mr Berlusconi, but one that can weave policy from the hopes and ideas of all its members.
Yet doubts remain. Although Mr Fini says some of the right things, does he say them for the right reasons? The easiest worry to put to rest is over his origins as a neo-fascist. His praise long ago for Mussolini was indeed contemptible, but if there is such a thing as redemption in politics Mr Fini deserves his chance. In a political journey lasting many years, Mr Fini has trekked to the centre-ground. In the process he has visited Israel and Auschwitz, jettisoned neo-fascist true believers, including his wife, repeatedly denounced Mussolini’s crimes and formed the PdL with Mr Berlusconi.
Less easy to shake off are the scheming and dirigisme. Although Mr Fini has courage, he is capable of breathtaking inconsistency—just take the abstention in this week’s vote. Never mind that it contradicted his policy that office-holders under formal suspicion should resign; Mr Fini does not want an election before the voters are familiar with his new party. He also betrays an admiration for the corporatism of Nicolas Sarkozy.
Mr Fini is probably Italy’s most able politician. He has skilfully plotted and schemed his way to the top, using power to win power. But if, as is now likely, the fag-end of Mr Berlusconi’s premiership soon burns out and the president calls an election, Mr Fini will need to start using power to get something done for the good of Italians, not Gianfranco Fini. That will demand not just guile and a sharp instinct for survival, but other, more noble attributes, including consistency and principle. It is time for Mr Fini to show that he possesses these too.
http://www.economist.com/node/16743313