Berlusconi in the dock?
Has Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi spread himself too thin, wonders Samia Nkrumah from Rome
In the latest twist of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's clash with the Italian judiciary, a Milan court ordered that the prime minister must be tried separately from his co-defendants in a trial where he is accused of bribing judges to prevent the sale of a state-owned food firm, SME, in 1985 to a business rival. The court's decision was taken because of Berlusconi's repeated absence from hearings, which the premier attributes to official engagements.
Some analysts believe that the greatest political challenge to Berlusconi comes not from the opposition centre-left, but instead, from the judiciary. While a fragmented left with a minority in parliament has failed to present a credible challenge to the governing centre-right coalition headed by Berlusconi, the persistent corruption charges are an embarrassment to the prime minister. Cesare Previti, a former Berlusconi lawyer and his ex-defence minister in 1994, was recently convicted on bribery charges, some of which involved Berlusconi's own Fininvest company. The next six months are particularly sensitive as Italy stands to take over the presidency of the European Union from July till December 2003. James Walston, professor of politics at the American University of Rome said, in practice, Previti's conviction is less serious because Berlusconi and his lawyers "have prepared the ground so well by saying that it is all a put-up job".
Defending his position, the prime minister has made several public statements attacking the judiciary and the centre-left opposition whom he accuses of working together to undermine him. As before, Berlusconi said that his corruption trials were motivated by the politicised "communist" judges' desire to oust the prime minister from office. In his counterattack, Berlusconi suggested that bribery is not an uncommon practice in the country. He also suggested that he was asked by the late prime minister, Bettino Craxi, to intervene in the SME case.
Berlusconi's hostility towards the judges dates back to the Tangentopoli trials of the early 1990s which ended with the fall of the first Berlusconi government in 1994. Prior to that, Berlusconi was found guilty of perjury in 1990, having denied his membership of the P2 Masonic lodge, an anti-communist organisation which infiltrated the Italian secret service.
Over the past two years, the Berlusconi government has managed to introduce laws that worked in the prime minister's favour. The Cirami law, passed last year, allowed a suspect in a criminal trial to have the case removed to another court if he alleges that the judges are biased. Another law made it more complicated and time consuming to obtain evidence from abroad. Yet another measure decriminalised aspects of false accounting and annulled cases against the prime minister. Currently, the government is proposing a list of judicial reforms that critics claim are aimed at hampering the judiciary's independence.
The whole debate concerning judicial reforms is clouded by political considerations and that is one reason why the public is baffled by the whole affair. It is no coincidence that Berlusconi's counter- accusations -- that he is a victim of the left-leaning judiciary -- has many sympathisers. Some left-wing lawmakers and attorneys are themselves critical of the centre-left's automatic support of the judiciary's position on all issues since this makes them vulnerable to claims that the judiciary is politicised. While many others believe the government is waging a political vendetta against the judiciary.
The confusion partly explains why the public has remained unfazed by the trials. Despite being embroiled in over a dozen criminal cases, stemming from charges of corruption to meddling with financial records, Berlusconi has not incurred the disapproval of the public. Suspicions of Mafia connections -- concern that Berlusconi must have engaged in some illegal financing on his way to building his business empire -- do not worry a large portion of the electorate. Generally, people's faith in the judiciary reflects their political allegiance, with those on the right remaining critical of the judiciary.
Noam Chomsky, the renowned linguist and political activist, offered an explanation as to why the Italian public is not worried about Berlusconi's trials. "They don't care because they are under tremendous pressure -- this is not Italy but the world -- to try to remove the population from the political arena", Chomsky told Dominico Pacitti, an academic who teaches at the University of Pisa in an interview. Chomsky further argues that people are lured into passive apathy and to a politically "marginal existence" through several forms. One of these is propaganda. "There is good reason to believe that as a society gains more freedom, propaganda takes the place of violence as a means to control people," suggests Chomsky.
As far as propaganda is concerned, Berlusconi, the biggest media tycoon in the country, has managed through his position as prime minister, to yield considerable influence over the majority of Italian television programmes. This is significant in a country which enjoys one of the highest TV viewership in the continent. In addition to owning Fininvest, a company which controls Mediaset and runs the three main private television channels -- the governing coalition also controls the RAI network, which runs the three main state channels. Before the 2001 elections, which brought his government to power, Berlusconi had promised to resolve the conflict of interest between his public office and his business interests. He also talked about the possibility of privatising two of the state-run RAI channels. But so far, despite a spate of debates, there has been no tangible progress on either of these two fronts. On the contrary, last year a law was approved enabling the prime minister to keep control of his business empire, including his media concerns, thus settling the conflict of interests issue.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 22 - 28 May 2003 (Issue No. 639)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/639/in4.htm