ITALIAN PRIME minister Silvio Berlusconi this weekend faces a major political crisis and the possibility of an early general election following a seemingly irrevocable break with his long-time political ally Gianfranco Fini, speaker of the lower house of parliament.
Months of ever more public tensions and disagreements between Mr Fini and the prime minister came to a head on Thursday night when Mr Berlusconi’s People of Freedom Party (PDL) formally expelled Mr Fini, with the prime minister accusing his former ally of adopting “an attitude of permanent opposition to us in harmony with the left”.
The PDL also called on Mr Fini to resign his position as speaker.
Mr Fini accused Mr Berlusconi of having an “illiberal” notion of democracy, arguing that he had been expelled from the party of which he was a co-founder in the space of just two hours and without “being given the chance to defend myself”.
In a brief news conference, Mr Fini touched on the major point of division between the two former allies, arguing that Mr Berlusconi’s party seems to be more interested in the concept of legal immunity than in a just legal process.
For months now, the PDL has been shaken by the so-called “moral” question with as many as 36 PDL parliamentarians either condemned or under investigation for a vast range of crimes, including Mafia membership, fraud, corruption and embezzlement. In the last two months, four senior PDL figures, ministers Claudio Scajola, Aldo Brancher and Nicola Cosentino as well as party organiser Denis Verdini, have been forced to resign their posts.
For Mr Fini and his supporters, formerly members of the right-wing Alleanza Nazionale party, one of the breaking points with Mr Berlusconi seems to have been the so-called gag law on the use of wire-taps by police and magistrates. Critics argue that this Bill, being pushed through parliament, would seriously inhibit investigations into organised crime and impinge on press freedom.
Mr Fini said his commitment to justice was taken seriously “out of respect for the deal we have with our electorate, millions of honest people who feel a debt of gratitude to magistrates and police forces and who cannot understand how, in our party, respect for civil and legal rights becomes a request for immunity”.
Mr Fini now seems set to form yet another new party, Future and Freedom in Italy, a parliamentary grouping which could yet bring down Mr Berlusconi’s government, in office since May 2008.
It is believed that Mr Fini can count on 34 votes in the lower house and 10 in the senate.
Speaking yesterday, Mr Fini said that he would vote with the government on legislation with which he agreed and against it if he felt the measures would prove to be “harmful to the general good”.
Mr Fini also vehemently defended his right to stay on as house speaker, arguing that Mr Berlusconi’s calls for his resignation were the expression of a “company mindset that has nothing to do with democratic institutions”.