As many of you know, and my forum name suggests, I lived in Italy for some time in the late 90s/early 00s. One of the most memorable nights was november 9, 1999, 10 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. I went to a meeting in the Palazzo del Lavoro, in EUR, a Merlusconi built quarter, fascist in style for the cancelled Rome World Expo of 1940. Berlusconi almost took credit for the fall of the Mauer, equalising the left with the communist parties. And there I stood amidst people singing the forza Italia hymne "Rinasce con noi" (Get reborn with us) peformed for television stars, and wavbing flags. The people fell hard for it. I stood amids 100s of women from naples, in hteir 40s and 50s, and he, the men who brough them their daily Telenovela, was their hero.

In the 80s, the balance of power was corrupt, but stable. The DC (Christian Democrats) were in power, and formed a government with the Craxi Socialdemocrats. The communists (PCI) were kept happy with some jobs at the time and their powerbases around Tuscany. Governments changed every year, but the same powerpeople kept being in charge (Fanfani, Andreotti, Moro) But it couldn't last, corruption thrived and thrived and Italy was left behind.

Operation Mani Puliti started, with some very brave Milan Magistrates. The system, which had been so stable, collapsed over night. To fill the vaccuum of center-left, and center right. Two things happened. The PCI tried to show themselves social democrats (DS) and on the right Berlusconi saw a chance to remain far from corruption investigations and gian more power, partly by use of his television force. Furthermore there were lots of small parties, and many factions.

He won the election, but his first government wasn't stable, mainly due to the Lega Nord, the northern sparatists and the post-fascists (NA), who weren't that united at the time. The next govenrment was a left one, and actually quite good with Prodi and D'Alema leading fragile coalitions and leading Italy towards the Euro (which you might not like as a goal, but the discipline was important.


In 2001 Berlusconi regained power (on my birthday ffs) and he led a very stable government to his credit. Sadly, the things they did do weren't that much. He had sign a Newt Gingrich-style Contract with the Italians, which yhad worked very well in the election campaign, but he couldn't keep his promises, partly due to the econmoic bad weather. He failed to make any painfull reformations necessary. Italy is filled with little entrepreneurs about to be wiped away and a pension system that's unsustainable.

So he he lost the elections of '06 but only narrowly, which led to perhaps the most not-being able to do anything-govenment of all time. An easy prey for the opposition, the Prodi-II government was only busy keeping afloat. Italy was at the same time overflowed by immigrants, economic problems and a crime wave.

And now Berlusconi saw his chance, for the '08 elections, he won a big victory, and incorperated the former fascists into the 'House of Freedom', his new party. He convinced Italians he would combat these problems by doing three things, although frased rather differently
- Give companies, especially his, more freedm
om
- Reduce the power of the magistrates to go for old crimes (including his alleged crimes)
- And to cover it up, do harsh things against immigrants and Roma, while doing nothing to actually help their situation to prevent them from coming into a criminal environments, and now this...

Tags: Politiek