Overseas Perspectives                         
by Sandra Giovanna Giacomazzi 

Restoring Democracy to Italy

Six and half years ago in the Gulf of Naples democracy in Italy was undone.  The new conservative Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was hosting an international congress on organized crime.  On that occasion, an indictment for charges of corruption was issued against the media magnate who had recently won the confidence of the Italian voters.

It was obvious from the timing that the theatrics were a political ploy.  Had the accusations been true, any magistrate in his right mind would have waited a few days until after the conference to announce the indictment, if only to save the face of the nation.

The political result:  the accusations were so defamatory and of such a grave nature, that Berlusconi lost the support of one of the other parties that formed his coalition and he was forced to resign.

An interim prime minister was selected by the president who served for an “interim” of a duration superior to the length of time in office of any prime minister since the end of World War II!

Since then, Italy has been governed by a hodge-podge of parties including ex, post, neo, still, penitent and non-penitent Communists and Communists in denial, in a world where communism has become an anachronism, except in a few die-hard places like Cuba and North Korea.

Last year, after seven years of travesty, humiliation, enormous financial costs, and a waste of time, talent, and resources, one by one the cases against Berlusconi were thrown out of court, dismissed for lack of evidence, or reduced to charges of bare significance.

During all of this time, Berlusconi kept his party and his coalition together and, notwithstanding the relentless process of defamation, the Italian public continued to show support for the man and the ideas and ideals that he stands for.

On May 13th the Italians have the opportunity to reverse a wrong that was done to them six years ago.  The polls have been decidedly in Berlusconi’s favor.  However, the left is doing everything and anything it can once again to beg, borrow, and steal this election.

During the Cold War, the Communists were the opposition party and they had to content themselves with the crumbs of political subventions.  Since they brought Berlusconi down they have finally been able to sit at the main table at the banquet of pork barrel.  It took a long time to come out from under the table and they are hardly willing to give up their chairs at the feast.

These orphans of Stalin cry in outrage against the impropriety of having a prime minister who owns three important private networks.  By law, Berlusconi is not allowed to use his television stations to promote his own programs.  And by choice, barring one exception, all political programming has been done away with on his networks.  However, his critics think nothing of using the three public networks financed with the money of the tax paying Italian citizens to propagate their own cause and massacre the enemy.

They are an infamous chorus of defamers.  They had already accused Berlusconi in the past of having financed the creation of his media empire with money from the Mafia.  Now they have ordained him as Mr. Mafia himself, charging him with being responsible for the deaths of Falcone and Borsellino, two judges who were martyrs in the early eighties in Sicily during the highly publicized trials against organized crime.  They have even tried to scare him off the campaign trail with death threats against his very life.

The most recent ruse smacks of a conspiracy of international proportions.  Every day a member of the foreign press presents an anti-Berlusconi “revelation”.  Britain’s The Economist, Spain’s El Mundo, France’s Le Monde, Germany’s Die Zeit and our own New York Times and International Herald Tribune have printed stories bent on propagating the idea that Berlusconi is unfit for office.  The stories, presented as scoops, are merely translated réchauffés of information we have been reading in the leftist Italian newspapers for the last seven years.

One can only hope that the undecided voters who are still sitting on the fence will not be swayed by the onslaught of eleventh hour sleights of hand conjured up by the former worshipers of an ideology that has always distained the will of the people.  The Italians have the opportunity to restore democracy to their country, and the man to office that they had hoped to be governed by seven years ago when they voted him into office in the first place.

May 2001

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