He is proof that Berlusconi's electoral law was designed to make Italy ungovernable for this legislature. The government cannot hold together without his presence in the coalition. This gives him a great deal of freedom to take personal initiatives or to procrastinate on collective initiatives that are part of the coalition platform.

One point of the program was to block the so-called reform of the judiciary branch passed by the Berlusconi governmnet. He procrastinated with the result that this disastrous law went into effect.

He is presently riding a demagogic Cathlic-rightwing position to grant amnesty for a large number of crimes. It is feared this amnesty would include another blanket pardon for the white collar crimes committed by the Berlusconi entourage. Whereas Berlusconi hesitated to resort to an amnesty that would have included his own, Mastella doesn't.

The Minister of Infrastructures, Antonio Di Pietro, has declared that he will pull out of the government if the amnesty includes white collar crime.

Another battle cry of the rightwing is to pass a law severely punishing leaks to the press of investigative transcripts and wire-taps. This is demagogic in that there are already laws on the books. However the proposed law would put the responsability on the shoulders of the ownership of papers, creating the conditions of preventive censorship. This law had already been proposed by the Berlusconi government but never got to the floor.

Whose platform is Mastella enacting, the Prodi coalition's program or Berlusconi's?