Street guerrilla warfare marked Berlusconi's latest escape in parliament, writes PADDY AGNEWin Rome
YESTERDAY’S “B Day” in parliament took place against the background of dramatic scenes involving two worlds that may never have seemed further apart. While the Lower House vote of confidence which kept prime minister Silvio Berlusconi in power was being played out in a suspense-filled air of intense drama, out in the streets of Rome all hell broke loose as protesting students generated scenes of urban guerrilla warfare, marked by burning cars, smashed bank windows and fighting with police.
The government crisis has coincided with the introduction of a bitterly unpopular university reform bill by minister of education Mariastella Gelmini. For the students, the hope was that the government would fall yesterday, bringing down with it any hope that the Gelmini reform might pass into law.
To mark the occasion and to once again signal their virulent opposition to the Bill, students demonstrated all over Italy yesterday – in Bari, Bologna, Cagliari, Catania, Cosenza, Genoa, Milan, Palermo, Rome, Savona, Trieste and Turin. Rome saw the worst of the violence that broke out as thousands of students marched through the city centre. Some tried to make their protest directly outside both houses of parliament, which had been blocked off with a heavy police presence.
Cars were burnt on the banks of the Tiber and stones were thrown at police, reporters and passersby in Piazza Del Popolo, while the windows of a branch of Deutsche Bank on Corso Vittorio Emanuele were smashed. Mayor of Rome Gianni Alemano went to Piazza Del Popolo to see the result and said the capital had not seen such violence since the 1970s and 1980s.
In the rest of the country the student protests were more peaceful, but did cause chaos as traffic was halted in many cities. Students also occupied train stations in Genoa, Palermo and Turin. In Catania, the students called off their protest after a motorist caught in the traffic jam created by the demonstration suffered a heart attack and died.
By comparison with the scenes outside, the events in the Lower House of parliament yesterday had all theatricality of a finely crafted Restoration drama. For weeks it had been clear the Lower House vote would be a close-run affair – the outcome of which might well depend on a small number of so-called “uncertain” deputies. So it proved.
It was a case of all hands on deck as no less than three heavily pregnant centre-left deputies, one in a wheelchair, showed up. Yesterday’s vote, too, was no secret ballot, but was done by a roll call and subsequent walk past the speaker’s chair, where the deputy indicated his/her choice. This meant when one of the “uncertain” deputies came to walk down the aisle, an expectant hush descended. When deputy Katia Polidori, nominally a member of rebel Gianfranco Fini’s group, took everyone by surprise by declaring for Berlusconi, the roof on Palazzo Montecitorio nearly came down as his supporters howled their approval.
In the end, as cars burned, police batons were wielded and tear gas filled the air outside, the government registered an important win. But was this a Pyrrhic victory?