Italy’s prime minister becomes an unlikely crusader against corruption

Povera Italia,

Our GDP has fallen by 5%, unemployment has risen by 8% ... Our firms are closing down in the south as well as in the north of Italy ... Our young have to go abroad if they want to built a decent life... while our politicos don't do nothing for our "wonderful" country...
They squabbling between them on to occupy all seats, They are frightened by the reforms... It's wonderful to live a Rome if you are a Italian parliamentary. It's different if you are a worker o an unemployed...
Politicos go to home.
God saves Italy!.

Reading The Economist’s admiring obituary of the late Mr. Foot, I could not help remembering the rather different prose used by this same paper while commenting on the very same Mr. Foot during the sixties and seventies. Unless Bagehot’s heirs were very badly off the mark then — which I still suspect was not the case — their current generation seems to have fallen today into a quite remarkable pit of hypocrisy and blindness.

The latter alternative appears to be borne out by the spite and bias oozing from the very incipit of The Economist’s latest reporting on Italy’s Mr. Berlusconi: “LAUGH or cry?”.

Of course, Mr. Berlusconi can hardly be considered above criticism, both in his personal and political activities. Yet, The Economist surely knows that in Italy unjustified corruption charges against political enemies are just as rife as corruption itself.

It should be a telling point that during the latest 15 years Mr. Berlusconi has been haunted (so far unsuccessfully) with tenths of allegations, all of them relating to the time before he entered politics. Indeed, in sheer desperation for their inability to indict him for any of his activities while in office, his enemies have recently had recourse to an entirely shameful campaign of mud slinging against his popular, honest and very effective head of the civil protection agency: a campaign that The Economist has not less shamefully condoned in its reporting, through silence.

Of course, The Economist is fully entitled to the unproven opinion that Mr. Berlusconi is nevertheless guilty of all the charges, even those (of corruption in office) that nobody has yet brought against him. Still, this does not justify presenting such opinion as a proven fact, and much less using it to write off Mr. Berlusconi’s proposed anti-corruption legislation as an obvious scam, without even looking into its contents.

Laugh or cry indeed. I am sorry to have to say that I regard this sort of reporting as inconsistent with professional journalism

This articles pretty much states what we expatriated Italians already know.  That  corruption in Italy is part of daily life and under the current government, it prospers.  I'm not sure about peninsular Italians though, the state and private (berlusconi's) media were reporting Mills acquittal as a victory for berlusconi.

It will take a massive financial crises,  worse than the one currently afflicting Greece, for  Italy to get rid of pervasive corruption.
It  may not take long, for the Greek financial tsunami, to reach Italian shores. My hope is that the waive will be high enough to cleanse Italy from it corruption.

@High-Hanger

Being the son of an Italian partisan who fought against the Germans in WW2, I can assure you that no one — at least in his Giustizia e Libertà division — ever embarked in a campaign of foul mud-slinging lies even vaguely similar to the one you are attempting to wage here.

As to the “surprises” waiting as all with the forthcoming regional elections, some might say that we have already began to see some of them, with attempts to prevent a free vote through legal cavils (by people who say that the Statute of Limitations is a “mere technicality” and should be ignored).

But I do not expect that that will much impress you, as you are obviously no lover of democracy and freedom (not to speak of mere reasoning, or even English grammar, for that).

The terrible trouth of tragedy: lought for all the world,...cry italian people !...or, at least the 60% that do not vote for Berlusconi's party (or do not vote at all).
As often in the history, a not large educated and informed (only 5 mil. newspaper a day !) people is fascinating by a man that is able to do always, and not punished, his strictly personal interest.
Pietro Pasut

By now, most people in Italy prefer not to comment, and even pretend not to notice. With no reliable government party and no credible opposition party many citizens are voting with their feet as they ponder where to move to abroad (easier within the EU of course). Future Economist articles will probably focus on just how the numbers of Italians in Germany, France, Spain and the UK will be higher than central/east Europeans.
Mr. Berlusconi is 73 years old. Mr. Prodi already did us the favour of retiring. How about Silvio retiring also, and letting the rest of the country get on with their lives?

@maiepoimai, You say :“May God bless and grant him [Mr Berlusconi] many more years of good physical and mental health.”

My question is: Are you sure that He is currently in “good mental health”?

@Sydney Guy, You say: “An article published in the Australian Financial Review that was critical of Berlusconi generated hundreds of complaints by Australians of Italian descent.”

Of course you know that in Australia there is one of the largest ‘drangheta community in the world: the same guys who made Mr. Di Girolamo be elected.

@Ferretti, You say that there is a ”shameful campaign of mud slinging against his [of Berlusconi] popular, honest and very effective head of the civil protection agency...”

All right, you too believe in Fairy Tales.

As for me, also taking into consideration what’s going on about the Regional elections (a not-understandable Interpretative (?!) Decree just approved by the Govern): it may not be Fascism, but it has the same smell.

Possibly, if the first time was a tragedy this time is a farce: at our dearest expenses.

The readers of your reputed newspaper should be aware of the origin of Mr. Berlusconi money: that is from the sicilian mafia, simple and proven in hundreds of documents anyone can read on the web.
Our so calle dgovernment is under control of 70 and more gangsters, nad they try to silence any contrary voice. Regarding his "incredible" perfomances at the government, these are due to his practical total control of the media, in total disrespect of any law. Talking about laws, he has reduced our country to a lelvel of corruption comparable only to some central african regimes. There are some good news in Italy now: in despite of the evil dogma instilled in the lower part of the population, the one that dont read any news and take for granted what the regime has to say, a new wave of informed citizen is arising, working as partisans did in WWII, to spread the truth and to convince people to go and vote against the regime. Some big surprises will come out of election days at the end of the month.. Stay tuned, folks !

@Girolamo

So Girolamo, please help me in understanding your stand: some magistrates are wrong when they put in jail Mr. Balducci, some other magistrates are right when they decide not to hear Mr. Ciancimino in a trail against Dell’Utri, and of course some others are wrong when they decide negatively about Formigoni’s electoral list...

Uhmm... ah now I understand they are right when they decide according to the interests of Mr. Berlusconi and his acolytes and they are wrong in all other occasions.

I like this rule.

Please, take me home a plate of Pasta al Forno, I like it, and nobody should dare to say that Pasta al Forno is not the best dish in the world. In other words you say that Regulations are like a restaurant menu, at you own and personal service as it was for a Nobleman during the Feudal era.

From now on, I will call this stand the Pasta al Forno Law.

Enjoy your meal.

 I'm puzzled why many people react negatively when foreign news papers, including the Economist, write negatively about berlusconi.
Anti berlusconism should not be interpreted as anti-Italian, doing so,  manifests lack of objectivity and infantile nationalism.
Preoccupied in protecting his business interests and his skin from prosecution, berlusconi has  done and is doing nothing to improve Italian living standard, and what is for the Greater Good of Italy.
Instead in Italy, under silvio, corruption has increased, as most people are encouraged to under-declare their professional income, doctor, lawyers, architects. dentists, pharmacist, self employed professional, declare an income below that of a dishwasher. This is what should enrage civil-minded people, and not the criticism from foreign press.

News papers like the Economist should be thanked for exposing Italy as one of the most corrupt  country in Western Europe.

I don't know how many time the Economist has written negatively about the British government, yet you don't see the British accusing the Economist of being anti -British. 

I also noted here, people ridiculing  some posts of non English speakes' grammar, how tacky to say the least.
I encourage any one whose English is not their native language to keep writing regardless of  their  lack of "correct" grammar.

@oldfashion2:

“Ferretti, You say that there is a ”shameful campaign of mud slinging against his [of Berlusconi] popular, honest and very effective head of the civil protection agency...” All right, you too believe in Fairy Tales.”

I beg to disagree. You might be interested in knowing that my opinions on the Italian civil protection agency and its head follow from my personal experience as a resident of L’Aquila. Were you interested in facts, I could give you quite a number of factual details on the reasons why the vast majority of L’Aquila’s inhabitants share my view, irrespective of their opinion on Mr. Berlusconi.

That is even ignoring the other established fact of the matter, namely that the infamous allegations against poor Mr. Bertolaso have not led to any charge, as they were quickly proven to be untrue.

This all being so, you might perhaps now wish to distance yourself from the foul slandering you have, certainly unwittingly, supported in your post.

Take Berlusconi away as the toothless left has been trying to do for the past 16 years and you will see Italy falling back to the level of a banana republic with a sequence of petty governments by an average duration of nine month.
As to date none of the left parties including the fragile, confused coalition in the PD represent a viable alternative to the present center-right Italian government.
The only amalgamate that holds the parties in the PD in a sort of togetherness is the antiberlusconism, beside that there is not a single thing in which they are in agreement.
Italy is a very, very difficult country to control and to govern, so far Mr.Berlusconi has proven himself able to somehow manage better that anyone else before considering the multitude of problems and adversities that crop up daily including the odd disloyal collaborator, very close to him.
A country with an extremely high mafia influence, which in the course of decades infiltrated, vitiated and corrupted every sector of the public administration, judiciary, media, police and politics.
Berlusconi if anything requires support from within and outside the country. Those that are trying to remove him are the same people that live, benefit and prosper mostly in a situation of confusion as it has been for decades before Mr.Berlusconi decided to enter in politics.
May God bless and grant him many more years of good physical and mental health.
History shall at the end reward him for the high price that is now paying through considerable sacrifices, work, dedication and all the unduly abuses he is receiving daily.

People are voting the right because is often the party of law and order.

Regarding the law the Economist article is enough to explain.

Regarding the order.... such a chaotic mess with the candidature for the regional elections was even hard to think if some theatre had to think about it... they were either late in presenting the appeal at TAR:

http://notizie.virgilio.it/notizie/politica/2010/03_marzo/04/%20regional... (in italian)

And the responsible for the signatures to present the election's list was in charge of Lombardy civil protection (that of Bertolaso, whom I still consideran honourable men)

Italian continue to vote them becuse they are amused by the show, there are no other explanations (except the soviet-union-bolshevik-plot explanation supported sometime here)

Re “pentiti”.

True, Enzo Tortora’s case happened many years ago. Yet it was just the best known, but certainly not the only one: have a look at the Italian Wikipedia under “Pentitismo”, for the mention of other cases of false “pentiti” who have hindered the course of Italian justice. Indeed, the recent Ciancimino affair appears to have been just the latest case of that kind, bar the fact that this time things were luckily stopped (though not by the prosecutors involved) before they reached the tragic stage of convicting some innocent person. Moreover, other cases may have happened without our knowledge (I fear that one such case might indeed still be the Contrada affair, although I can obviously have no certainty about that).

Still, the reason to remember such facts is certainly not to “blaken” anybody, contrary to the somewhat paranoid remarks by ANM and others who would like to suppress such information. As with all other big problems affecting Italian justice, this one stems from bad laws, not necessarily bad people: and those whose conscience is clean have no reason to resent it.

A “pentito” is an already convicted criminal — quite often a Mafia killer — who bargains with prosecutors a statement on the alleged guilt of others in unrelated cases, in exchange for a reduction in his own jail terms and other benefits. It should in my view be obvious that the truthfulness of all such declarations is always and by definition not above reasonable doubt. They might be potentially useful tips to get at some real evidence, but should never ever be allowed to be the only evidence on which anyone is convicted, no matter how many “pentiti” agree on accusing a given defendant. Otherwise, it would be only human for some hard-pressed prosecutor to lean on his “pentiti” to suggest what they should say to get their benefits — as indeed it happened first in Tortora’s case and now most recently with Mr. Ciancimino.

Yet, this is exactly what the Italian law still allows them to do. Since the result is a justice that is not really seen to be done, even if and when it actually is, it should be obvious to everyone (and in any language!) that the law should be changed. No need to get emotional on that.

I'm not so sure that expatriate Italians do support The Economist's viewpoint on corruption in Italy. An article published in the Australian Financial Review (http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/berlusconi-takes-the-via-dolorosa...) that was critical of Berlusconi generated hundreds of complaints by Australians of Italian descent.

You still don't get it: Mr Berlusconi is all those terrible things you have printed about him over the past 15 years or so; the alternatives are still worse.

Instead, why don't you write about small family businesses in Marche, for example, who maintain a skilful balance between manufacturing and agriculture?

Or why don't you write more about how inept the political alternatives are and ways they could possibly improve?

Bashing Berlusconi is not going to change election results just so that another set of corrupt politicians can achieve the same (non)-results.

What's the difference? At least Mr Berlusconi has some sexual energy left.

After having once again rehearsed all the rather tired and more or less mythological arguments regarding the never-ending Berlusconian saga, and before the statutory 15 days from publication finally elapse, we might perhaps still take the time go back to the main topic of the article we were supposed to be commenting on, which — as someone perhaps still remembers — was the new anti-corruption legislation recently announced by the Italian government.

The Economist’s suggestion was that any such proposal is not even worth looking into, on the simple principle — assumed without proof as self-evident or generally accepted, and anyway sufficient — that Italy’s prime minister is “an unlikely crusader” against corruption. My own immediate reaction — as some might remember — was that such an axiomatic approach did not really seem to tally very much with the "severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress" which The Economist is still supposed to be engaged in. I am now glad to be able to report that a helping hand on this topic, and towards a journalism less unworthy of this paper’s great traditions, seems to be coming — of all places — from Italy itself.

On the 6th of March the Italian daily Corriere della Sera has published on our subject a front-page column entitled “The transparence that is not there”, which I suggest you read. Its author Michele Salvati, an economist by training who prefers to write rather general political comments, is a former Communist member of PD, and certainly no friend of Italy’s current government. Yet, though critical, his remarks address the substance of what is known — which as yet is just the general lines of the proposed new law — in a rational and informed fashion, which might certainly lead to a useful debate on improving the proposal.

Mr. Salvati’s main point is that you may have essentially two kinds of anti-corruption tools: “direct” anti-corruption institutions, and checking and auditing routines “internal” to the individual public administrations. And he laments the virtual absence of the former in the government’s project, while the latter already exist in Italy, and are of questionable usefulness. As a remedy, he suggests that Italy introduces “external” independent watchdogs, of the kind exemplified by the New York City Comptroller.

I think that Mr. Salvati’s general suggestion should be taken very seriously. Just because Italy’s corruption has such deep roots in its prevailing pre-industrial social culture, it should be important for Italians to look carefully into the traditions and institutions of other more advanced countries, of which Britain is still most certainly another outstanding example, besides the United States. May I humbly suggest that it is here, much more than in the endless recycling of raucous and ignorant national myths we all already know, that our British friends could really be helpful?

@oldfashion2:

It’s not really your fault. Yet, were you a native Italian, you would have very good reasons to know that you are forced to sit at a judicial restaurant with a proven record of serving up rather poisonous rubbish. In the particular case of Mafia “pentiti” like Mr. Ciancimino, just think of the Tortora infamous case (I can give you some details, if you think you need them).

Such being the case, you would actually be rather well advised to look very carefully into the menu list, before making your choice. Personally, I would steer clear of anything as elaborated as “pasta al forno”, sticking firmly to the plainest form of “spaghetti al burro”. Then again, if you don’t heed this friendly advice you have only yourself to blame, and don’t really have a right to inflict to others (even in fully grammatical English) the pains of your resulting tummy ache.

Try some cure instead. If, like myself, you dislike the time-honoured (Fascist) prescription of compulsory castor oil — with all its attendant rather nasty side effects — just try a teaspoonful of two of sodium berlus-carbonate. It tastes awful and might even be not very effective. But at least it won’t harm you very much.

For many years Berlusconi is showing a management by occasion style. Nothing under controle, no vision, no straight line and above all no action that serves the country and its population. Italy wake up!

@Richard Bates

You are quite possibly right: possibly so even on Amanda Knox (although the legal expert who contributes to The Times wrote that in Britain such a case would have never reached a Court, even ignoring the preventive trial by media). I could easily accept that, in ordinary criminal cases, the British judiciary appear to be more prone to miscarriages of justice relative to their Italian counterparts. (Although perhaps this is actually not so, the simpler truth being that Italy’s redress system for judicial errors is so inefficient that most miscarriages of justice just go undetected).

However, be that as it may, you should also understand that this whole matter is totally besides the point here. What some people are complaining about in Italy is political justice, which is not necessarily the same as miscarriages of justice, as indeed tenths of unsuccessful prosecutions against the same defendant over 15 years quite plainly show.

It seems in fact apparent that, at least so far, the main object of Italian political justice has not been convicting innocent people — although a credible threat of just that is an essential part of the technique. Rather, it is a matter of sustained harassment, with two main purposes in mind: first, destroying the victim’s reputation and political career; and second — failing that — inflicting such huge costs in money, stress and time as to make it impossible for the victim to pursue his/her ordinary life (including the discharge of his/her normal duties as an elected executive official).

The proofs that this sort of harassment is widespread in Italy are, at least in my view, many and convincing, even if one ignores Mr. Berlusconi’s misadventures. If you think you need a list of reasonably well-documented cases, just say so. For the time being, it might suffice for me to say that this sort of thing should not be ignored or condoned, just because one has other reasonable grounds on which to disapprove of Mr. Berlusconi.