Berlusconi Injects Glamour Into Cabinet, But Fears Raised Over Anti-Immigrant Party
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Silvio Berlusconi began building his new Government today after a sweeping victory in the Italian general election, but there were early concerns that his new administration will be beholden to the populist and stridently anti-immigrant Northern League.
The League, which doubled its vote to more than 8 per cent, opposes Muslim immigration to defend the “Christian identity” of Italy and detests the European Union, whose officials were once called “filthy pigs” by the party’s unpredictable leader Umberto Bossi.
Mr Berlusconi’s People of Liberty alliance plus the Northern League won 46.5 per cent of votes for the Lower House and 47.1 per cent in the Senate.
He is likely to live up to his promise to give at least four Cabinet posts to women, with Stefania Prestigiacomo of his Forza Italia party given the post of Minister for European Affairs, and Mara Carfagna, a former model, television presenter and Miss Italy contestant, mooted as Minister for the Family.
The new Parliament convenes on April 29, and President Napolitano is expected to ask Mr Berlusconi to form a government shortly afterwards.
The most intense speculation, however, is over the future power of the Northern League, which is likely to gain the Interior Ministry (Roberto Maroni) and the Ministries for Reform (Roberto Calderoli) and Welfare (Rosi Mauro). Above all Mr Bossi will expect high office, even though he had a severe stroke four years ago and can still barely speak.
Mr Bossi has, however, described African immigrants as “Bingo Bongos” and said illegal immigrants arriving by boat should be “blown out of the water”. During the election campaign he called on his supporters to “take up arms” against “that rabble in Rome” over allegedly confusing ballot papers.
Mr Berlusconi has crossed swords with Mr Bossi, once casting doubt on his mental state, with the latter at one stage describing Mr Berlusconi as a “mafioso” and “Berluskaiser”, raising doubts over whether the alliance will last this time.
Today Mr Bossi denied Mr Berlusconi would be “my hostage”, telling La Stampa: “He is my friend. We have an electoral pact, and we will honour it”.
The Northern League or Lega Nord was founded in 1991 to campaign for greater autonomy for northern Italy, which it calls “Padania”. Its leaders act as if the imaginary state of Padania existed, and have at times called for secession, playing on the resentment many northern Italians feel over subsidising the “lazy and corrupt” Italian South with their taxes.
The League brought down the 1994 Berlusconi government by withdrawing from it, but served for a full five-year term as part of Mr Berlusconi’s administration between 2001 and 2006.
It draws on medieval myths for its symbolism, takes a conservative stand on issues such as abortion and gay marriage and claims to represent ordinary families, workers and small enterprises.
One League poster asks “Guess who is last in line for housing, employment and health care?”, and pictures Chinese, African and Arab people ahead of Italians in a social services queue.
Some local League leaders have called for separate train carriages for immigrants, and the former mayor of Treviso, Giancarlo Gentilini, removed park benches in the town on the grounds that immigrants slept on them, remarking “We should dress them up like hares—and then, bang bang bang”.
Support for the Lega Nord reached 10 per cent in 1996, but by 2006 this had dropped to below 5 per cent—making its revival all the more remarkable.
In contrast to the League’s triumph the two Communist parties and the Greens, which stood as the “Rainbow Alliance”, were wiped out, failing to gain a single seat—another sign of Italy’s shift to the Right.
“Nearly twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall Communism is finally dead in Italy” said Andrea Ronchi, a rightwing politician.
The Far Left debacle marks the end of the career of Fausto Bertinotti, leader of the Refounded Communists and a former Speaker of Parliament.
Together with the collapse of other small parties on both Left and Right it also at last ushers in a more streamlined parliament of coherent rival blocs, with the 26 parties of the last legislature reduced to just six.
“Since the politicians failed to implement a simpler and more stable system, the Italian people have done it for them” said Professor Giovanni Sartori, an expert on electoral law.
The centre Left Democratic Party led by Walter Veltroni, 52, the former mayor of Rome, won 37.6 per cent in the Lower House and 38 per cent in the Senate, giving Mr Berlusconi the nine to ten per cent lead forecast in the last opinion polls two weeks ago.
Mr Veltroni however is credited with providing the impetus for a “simplified” and more stable Parliament by excluding the Far Left and the Greens, forcing left-of-centre voters to choose between the Rainbow Alliance and Mr Veltroni’s social democrats.
Exit polls wrongly indicated that Mr Veltroni, who campaigned with a programme of “change and hope” as “Italy’s Barack Obama”, has caught up and Left and Right were neck and neck, raising the prospect of deadlock.
Il Messaggero, the Rome daily, suggested this was because many Italians were reluctant to admit to pollsters that they intended to vote for Mr Berlusconi or Mr Bossi, thus giving a misleading impression.
Of the other Cabinet posts, the Economy Ministry will almost certainly go to Giulio Tremonti, who held the post in a previous Berlusconi administration and is seen as safe pair of hands with a sharp analytical mind; the Foreign Ministry to Franco Frattini, Italy’s EU Commissioner: and Defence to Ignazio La Russa of the post Fascist Alleanza Nazionale, which forms the “People of Liberty” alliance together with Forza Italia. Gianfranco Fini, the Alleanza Nazionale leader, is likely to become Speaker of the Lower House.
Mr Berlusconi said “The months and years ahead will be difficult and I am preparing a government ready to last five years”. He said his priorities were settling the future of state-controlled Alitalia and resolving and the rubbish crisis in Naples.
His campaign pledges included cutting taxes while reducing public debt, liberalising the economy and getting tough on crime—promises he failed to carry out when last in power, instead focusing his energies on measures to protect his own interests and avoid legal problems.
On Friday hearings resume in Milan in a trial in which Mr Berlusconi is accused of bribing David Mills, the estranged husband of Tessa Jowell, the British Olympics Minister, to give false evidence on his behalf in a corruption case.
(Posted on April 15, 2008)
Comments
“…opposes Muslim immigration to defend the “Christian identity” of Italy and detests the European Union, whose officials were once called “filthy pigs” by the party’s unpredictable leader Umberto Bossi.”
The reporter seems to have included this description with the expectancy that the reader would share in his disdain for Bossi (e.g. semi-scare quotes around “Christian identity”). He sounds absolutely great - just the kind of politician Italy and every other European country needs!
Posted by Dave at 7:56 PM on April 15
This is Silvio Berlusconi’s third stint as Italy’s head of state, and let’s hope it’s a “charm” in that he does what he promises to do re race and immigration.
Posted by Question Diversity at 8:12 PM on April 15
In contrast to the League’s triumph the two Communist parties and the Greens, which stood as the “Rainbow Alliance”, were wiped out, failing to gain a single seat—another sign of Italy’s shift to the Right.(FROM ARTICLE ABOVE)
Communists were “wiped out”. That brings a huge smile to my face. Maybe there is hope for Italy. The last thing I read about Italy was the fact that Napoli(Naples) couldn’t pick up it’s trash.
Posted by Howard in Las Vegas at 8:37 PM on April 15
but there were early concerns that his new administration will be beholden to the populist and stridently anti-immigrant Northern League
Who exactly is “concerned” about this? Obviously, if it was the italian people, he would not have been voted in by a landslide.
Posted by at 8:45 PM on April 15
if only we had a man like that in the US, true Berlesconi sent troops needlessly to Iraq
Posted by enraged at 9:31 PM on April 15
The nerve of patriotic politicians , to love their countries’ : cultural past and present, race, religion, cuisine, language and want to ” preserve it for future generations; for if they don’t, there isn’t anything cultural to pass on. Why are ” parasitic peoples ” more important and have more ” universal rights ” (?) than ” host peoples ” to want to maintain their ” envious ” life styles ? Isn’t envy one of the seven ” capitol sins ” of Judeo-Christian religion or is cultural/racial ” communism ” now too firmly ensconced in Western civilization to be considered morally wrong ?
Posted by Michigan patriot at 6:24 AM on April 16
Exit polls wrongly indicated that Mr Veltroni, who campaigned with a programme of “change and hope” as “Italy’s Barack Obama”, has caught up and Left and Right were neck and neck, raising the prospect of deadlock.
Il Messaggero, the Rome daily, suggested this was because many Italians were reluctant to admit to pollsters that they intended to vote for Mr Berlusconi or Mr Bossi, thus giving a misleading impression.
I predict that this is going to happen in the U.S. elections, only in reverse. When push comes to shove in November, and voters are standing in the polling booths deciding between McCain and Obama, a lot of white Obamaniacs are going to pull the lever for McCain. They’ve already gotten their PC brownie points by advertising their love of Obama, and who’s going to know how they actually vote?
Posted by at 1:50 PM on April 16
Well done Italians!
Confirms my belief that White Italians can be counted on to take pro Western, pro White positions more than any other “White” group.
Note that our side WON in Italy. We won. Our side didn’t get 2% by running on pie in the sky libertarian, CONSTITUTIONALIST platforms. Our side won in Italy by clearly take a “us” vs “them” position and the “them” included, nasty, dark, scary Muslim immigrants.
When our side occassionally wins something in America we do the same as the Italians did here.
Moral of the story, play to win, the goal is to WIN not get 2%.
Posted by JR at 3:07 PM on April 16
Who exactly is “concerned” about this? Obviously, if it was the italian people, he would not have been voted in by a landslide.
Posted by at 8:45 PM
……………….
Good question. That reminds me very much of the French election held at this same time last year. There were exactly the same sort of “concerns” expressed in the papers that Le Pen would draw a large part of the French vote. Naturally, that couldn’t be allowed to happen! So the press joined forces behind Sarkozy and got him elected.
Just whose “concerns” are these anyway? If the French (or Italian) people were truly so worried, they wouldn’t be voting for such candidates in the first place. Apparently, somebody must like them. And apparently somebody else doesn’t like that.
Posted by ghw at 11:35 PM on April 16
GO ITALIA! That a man wants his house to represent his nature does not a biggot make him!…Italy should be for Italians .. as Europe should be for Europeans! Some immigration may be fine but not the ridiculous invasions by peoples of racial and cultural difference, enough to eradicate the Europeans existence in their own homelands! Let the blacks and Arabs stay in the lands they created, that they are sooo proud of!!! The white Europeans simply do not want to be slaves to hoards from Africa and the near east who come in guise of seeking shelter. Now I hope You Italians can make me proud by rekindling Some of the excellence and dignity once found in your Classical And Renaissance era’s!!!VVV
Posted by Petrarch at 8:37 AM on April 17
Viva to the Italians who fight against the invasion of their country. Italy is sovereign and so is America. Immigration is colonialism, the third world and the Bolsheviks condemned colonialism as I do, so end colonialism and end immigration. Illegal immigration is even far worse as it is an invasion. Repel it by any non-violent means necessary. Protest, picket, march, whatever. We Americans are free and we need to march to protect our freedom from colonialism and invasion. The two party system consists of traitors to our people. More and more Americans want to spit on the flag instead of saluting it because it now stands for something evil due to the Bolsheviks who have manipulated and undermined our great nation. I have nothing aginst foreigners and I mean it.
Posted by Elrey Jones at 5:57 PM on April 17