Brussels, 02/08/2013 (Agence Europe) - Uncertainty hovers over the future of the current Italian government, after confirmation - on Monday 1 August by the Court of Cassation - of the sentencing of Silvio Berlusconi to four years in prison (for three of which there is an amnesty) and a period of ineligibility still to be determined for tax fraud as part of the Mediaset scandal. Berlusconi has been prime minister three times and is the Centre-Right leader of the second largest party of a Left-Right government coalition that was formed with difficulty after two months of deadlock.
Berlusconi, for whom this judgment marks the first definitive sentence after 20 years of successive trials for different charges, reacted in a video address by criticising the sentence as being “based on nothing”, being the work of an “irresponsible” legal authority fringe group that had become “uncontrollable” and “that had permanently conditioned political life”. He made no mention of his earlier promises of support to the government whatever the outcome of the trial, but encouraged his supporters to relaunch his political party by taking back its original name (Forza Italia).
This judgment shakes up the People of Freedom (PDL, Berlusconi's party), including several figures who are part of the current government and could be tempted to resign in support of their leader, or, at least, put pressure on other parties of the coalition about remaining there (the current secretary of state for public administration, Michela Biancofiore, has already offered her resignation and called on Berlusconi's lawyers to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights). The sentence also sows trouble amongst the Left parties of the coalition - certain members of which could call for new elections, feeling it difficult to conceive of continuing to govern with the PDL after the sentence of its leader for tax fraud (Nichi Vendola, leader of the Left, Ecology, Freedom party, close to the Democratic party of Prime Minister Enrico Letta, expressed an opinion along these lines). More cautious, the reaction of the secretary general of the Democratic party, Guglielmo Epifani, who called on the Right to show “the responsible behaviour (…) needed in a serious phase of crisis that is across the country”, while the leader of the left wing of the party, Matteo Renzi, spoke of the growing feeling of malaise among party members. Italy's President of the Republic Giorgio Napolitano and Letta also called for calm and for respect of the Court's decisions, urging people to put “partisan interests” aside.
As to Berlusconi's political future, the Court of Cassation called on the Court of Appeal in Milan to re-examine the imposition of a five-year ban on exercising political responsibility to which Berlusconi is subject in the first instance (he could be sentenced to one to three years of ineligibility). In the meantime, he will probably be under house arrest for a year, he will not be able to stand for the next elections, and the Senate will decide whether he should be dismissed from parliament. (FG/transl.fl)