Falling of the Italian government: Not just another crisis (November 1995)
The prospect of a crisis or the falling of the government in Italy is
hardly something one would consider news. With 50 governments in
as many years, there have been occasions when the government fell several
times in the same year. What is news about the present crisis in
Italy is that it is one that affects the very foundations of Italian governmental
institutions as well as the ideals of democracy.
On October 19th, the Minister of Justice, Filippo Mancuso was given
a vote of no confidence by the Italian Senate. However, it is highly
unlikely that the minister will resign. He has revealed a couple
of anecdotal episodes of encounters with the President of the Republic,
Oscar Luigi Scalfaro that are blatant denouncements of the President’s
questionable deontological qualities. This event will probably prove
to be one of the most critical moments in the fifty years of the Italian
Republic. And as if by chance, the union of journalists called for
a 3 day strike. If it weren’t for the news programs organized by
Berlusconi’s three networks, the citizens of Italy would have been left
in the dark about this serious crisis regarding the very foundations of
the institutions of their government.
In January of this year, Scalfaro called upon Lamberto Dini to form
a government of technocrats, as opposed to a government of elected officials,
which could carry the country through until a date could be decided upon
for the next elections. Filippo Mancuso was one of the technocrats
chosen by the new Prime Minister to fill the role of Minister of Justice.
Mancuso, with his professional reputation of moral integrity following
50 years as a dedicated magistrate, was called out of his retirement to
compute this task.
In the last few months a conflict broke out between the President and
Prime Minister, and their chosen Minister of Justice. At first encouraged
by Dini to continue with investigations into alleged illegal practices
computed by the public prosecutors involved in the “Clean Hands” trials,
later Scalfaro and Dini changed their minds and decided that the investigations
should cease. Mancuso refused. Having found enough evidence
to have cause for belief that the prosecutors had used unscrupulous tactics,
including threats and blackmail, in order to obtain more information on
others, and knowing that the brutality of these psychological tactics had
caused more than one person held in preliminary detention to commit suicide,
Mancuso felt it was necessary to continue with the investigations.
The investigations were extended to the entire judicial system throughout
the Italian Peninsula. It would seem logical that the grounds for
these investigations were more than valid. Having disclosed that
the entire political and industrial communities were prone to corruption,
there was no reason to assume that the judicial community was immune to
temptation.
Why would Dini and Scalfaro want to put a stop to such investigations?
The answer given by Scalfaro was that “it wasn’t worth it to spend time
investigating the “Clean Hands” trial prosecutors because they were on
their way to destroying themselves with their own hands.” However,
the truth probably lies in politics. It is a well-known fact in Italy
that the judicial system is all but monopolized by the Left. During
the decades that the Communist Party had a high percentage of the votes,
but was never allowed entrance into the political circle of ministers,
the party leaders encouraged young candidates to enter the judicial system,
which was their only way of grabbing another piece of the power cake.
Dini and his ministers owe their position to the leftist coalition that
supports them. Since Dini has come to power, he and his ministers have
demonstrated a certain growing affection to the seats they occupy and have
been unable to resist allowing their supporters to dictate the rules.
By doing so, this “technical” government in theory has become “political”
in practice, and has, therefore, lost its reason for being, especially
when one considers that its supporters are the ones who lost the elections.
Evidently, the government’s parliamentary constituents did not favor these
investigations.
Mancuso was asked to resign. Again, he refused. He was,
therefore, asked to submit himself to a vote of confidence in the Senate.
This event was called by a decree from Scalfaro and is without precedence.
According to Berlusconi’s opposition group, it is unconstitutional and
that is why their senators left the hall after Mancuso read his statement
and the voting procedures began. With the hall full of opponents
to Mancuso, the vote against him was overwhelming, with the noteworthy
exception of former President of the Republic, Francesco Cossiga.
What is causing the uproar is the contents of the statement written
by Mancuso and read before the Senate. The statement had been
distributed to all members of the Senate as well as to the press.
Due to the extreme reaction of Giovanni Motzo, Minister of Institutional
Reform, the only member of the executive branch in the hall at the time
besides, of course, the Minister of Justice himself, Mancuso chose not
to read aloud before the Senate several of the most provocative pages.
The contents of those pages are an indictment to the integrity of both
Scalfaro and Dini in terms of their moral capacity to occupy the positions
they hold. Motzo, representing Dini in the Prime Minister’s inconceivable
and uncourageous absence, had tried to interrupt the Senate session, when
he realized that Mancuso was about to read the pages that were most damaging
to the President.
There are two references in those unread pages which bring Scalfaro’s
rectitude into serious question. The first concerns the investigations
regarding the former Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi and his political
ally Gianfranco Fini. According to Mancuso, as soon as he came to
office, he was called aside by Scalfaro’s spokesman, Gaetano Gifuni, and
asked to continue with the utmost haste and solicitude, the proceedings
against these two men considered to be his political adversaries.
The other pertains to the investigations and trials concerning abuse
of the secret money funds handled by the Italian secret service, Sisde.
During those investigations the former agent, Maurizio Broccolletti, claimed
that the Ministers of the Interior, (and Oscar Luigi Scalfaro was at the
time one of the ministers in question for a period of four years), received
the sum of 100 million lira a month ($63,000). Since this money,
for “security” purposes, was not accounted for, there remains the plausible
doubt that important fractions of the monthly sum could have gone into
the personal bank accounts of the respective ministers. The result
of those investigations was that there was no way to prove that such doubts
were true. Not satisfied with this verdict, Mancuso, was accompanied
one evening by the secretary general to the Presidency, Gifuni, to the
President’s personal residence where he was implored by both to integrate
this verdict with a new one, in which it would be declared that the President,
Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, at the time in question, Minister of the Interior,
had never touched any some of money from Sisde.
Certainly, the Left, which had so enthusiastically supported the President’s
unprecedented decree to call for a vote of confidence against a minister
that he himself had called from retirement to take office, had no idea
of the boomerang effect that Mancuso’s deposition would provoke.
After the bomb exploded in the very hands of its primer, Berlusoni’s Forza
Italia, along with the other members of the Freedom Pole, are losing no
time in asking for a vote of no confidence toward Prime Minister Dini’s
government and there is even talk of impeachment of the President, if he
fails to resign. The Sisde case is being referred to as Sisde-gate,
and in light of their respective gravity, if Scalfaro gets away with a
simple impeachment, then Nixon should have been asked to stand in the corner
for a few minutes. In two separate occasions, the President of the
Republic sought to manipulate the judicial process and change judicial
verdicts to his own personal benefit. As if his own self-indictment
as recounted by Mancuso were not enough, his decision to renounce his trip
to New York in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the UN in order to
preside over his political interests here in Italy, may also be read in
terms of self-arraignment.
November 1995
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