Opinion - Editorials

Italy at the crossroads

The issues ahead of the Italian polls (April 9-10) to elect the 15th Parliament are as much about tackling the country's daunting economic challenges as about the restoration of the credibility of democratic institutions. The trust has been undermined by the obvious conflict of interests involved in the incumbent Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who controls 90 per cent of the media conglomerates, occupying the high office. The contest between the ruling centre-right House of Freedoms coalition, including the Union of Christian Democrats and Forza Italia, on the one side, and, on the other, the centre-left grouping, The Union — made up of former communists and progressive Christian Democrats — is at the same time a contest between sharply contrasting personalities and comes in the wake of an overwhelming victory for the centre-left in the regional elections held last year. The newly appointed President of the Italian Central Bank recently sounded alarm bells on the health of Europe's fourth largest economy, which registered a meagre average annual economic growth under the current government, the highest fiscal deficit in nearly a decade and public debt that rose last year for the first time since 1994. But even such a grim diagnosis does not overshadow the serial abuse of a parliamentary majority by Prime Minister Berlusconi to enact laws tailor-made for advancing his personal and business interests. The law giving the Prime Minister immunity from prosecution (which was eventually quashed by Italy's highest court) is perhaps the most typical instance of his proclivities to manipulate the system — two other examples are portraying the judiciary as "red judges" and imposing curbs on its authority. Whereas last year's electoral reform reverting the country to total proportional representation, which was discarded in the 1990s to ensure the stability of elected governments, is being viewed as a loser's last gambit, the controversial overhaul of the Italian Constitution embarked upon by Mr. Berlusconi seeks to accord legal sanction to the anti-immigrant and regionalist agenda of his centre-right coalition.

Although opinion polls in recent weeks have consistently shown a clear lead for the centre-left, the opposition's task of taking along a nine-party coalition in the face of the ruling right's near total monopoly over media space and Mr. Berlusconi's invocation of religion in the election campaign cannot be underestimated. But in a shrewd move, Mr. Berlusconi's challenger, former President of the European Commission and Italy's Prime Minister between 1996-1998, Romano Prodi, called a U.S.-style primary election last October to decide the centre-left prime ministerial candidate, polling nearly 75 per cent of the vote. With that overwhelming victory, Mr. Prodi may have seized the advantage with the electorate, while at the same time stamping his authority over the coalition. There is much at stake in the Italian election for Europe's left, which has witnessed divisions since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

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