Candidates from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom party (PDL) will not be allowed to contest the polls in Lombardy, his political home turf, and the Lazio region, which includes Rome. The bungle in Lazio occurred when a party member missed the deadline to register for the March 28-29 regional elections. A furious Berlusconi has vented his anger at "amateur" party officials, whose blunder could hand a victory to the left-wing opposition in two of Italy's most important regions.
Candidates from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom party (PDL) will not be allowed to contest the polls in Lombardy, his political home turf, and the Lazio region, which includes Rome.
The bungle in Lazio occurred when a party member missed the deadline to register for the March 28-29 regional elections.
A furious Berlusconi has vented his anger at "amateur" party officials, whose blunder could hand a victory to the left-wing opposition in two of Italy's most important regions.
It is beyond understanding how a crucial area such as the city and province of Rome could have been put in the hands of a person who had previously tried the same trick, evidencing signs of a grave personality disorder. As for Milan there is nothing amateurish or blundering about it. It's a free for all driven by envy and greed, all illegal blows allowed.
As of this evening the court has readmitted the PDL in the Rome elections. Formigoni in Lombardia is still out. It is likely that a bipartisan law will be passed to allow the life-time governor of Lombardia and self-declared virgin, Roberto Formigoni, to once again run. We hope he'll be readmitted, not so much for himself but for Nicole Minetti, Berlusconi's personal dental hygienist, one great piece of ass, tits galore, imposed by the Boss of Bosses.
The Minister of the Defence, Ignazio La Russa, one of the three national coordinators of Berlusconi's personal political entity, declared, "I don't want to play the subversive but I'll put it frank and clear: we wait with trust the verdict concerning our lists, but we will never accept that a court sentence may prevent hundreds of thousands of our voters to vote in the regional elections. If they prevent us from running for office we're ready to do everything."
This of course is not as important as the government's decision to drastically curtail freedom of the press on the pretext of regional elections. All in-depth news programs on state-owned broadcasting stations have been silenced. Last week an in-depth news program on the Fastweb-Telecom scandal was not allowed to show on the Telecom-owned La7. With a government falling apart over cases of vast, capillary corruption and major accusations of mafia ties by witnesses and collaborators of justice, Berlusconi, like an Ahmadinejad, sees nothing more fit than to close down talk-shows. That only leaves self-censored news programs that are heavily biased in favour of Berlusconi. According to some commentators the action is unprecedented in modern post-war Europe.
We expect Europe to speak out on this issue immediately. It is no longer an internal affair.
The EU only cares about free trade, unfortunately. En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
The person responsible for having presented the PDL's irregular lists late declared to reporters last night that "...revenge is a plate to be served cold." This apparently alludes to his previous behaviour in 2005 when he tried to pull the same trick. His famous "sandwich" break was deliberate.
Having little else to do, PDL big shots have taken to making calumnious accusations against the Radical party for having some how screwed them up. Berlusconi and his flunkies once again demonstrate an utter incapacity to recognize responsibility for their own actions.
Last night Berlusconi attempted to convince President Napolitano of the necessity of a law decree to allow the PDL to participate in the competition in Lombardy and Rome. It appears that Napolitano would only sign into law a bill approved by all parties in parliament but invited Berlusconi to wait until a final sentence in both cases.
Berlusconi has prepared a decree that will change the rules during the game. At this point it's merely a question of propaganda and media blitzkriegs, made all the easier by the television news blackout. The PDL seeks to depict itself as a victim of an anti-democratic putsch. (That it was of their own doing is swept under the rug.) By voting a law by simple majority (the opposition has declared they would not vote for it) Berlusconi will put Napolitano on the spot, forcing an institutional crisis.
The position of the racist ally Lega Nord is anything but ambiguous. Bossi has everything to gain from the chaos in Rome and Lombardy. He need only sit back and wait until the dust settles.
The opposition leader Di Pietro just accused Berlusconi of planning a coup d'état. He warned that if Berlusconi continues with his plans there will be organized resistance in the streets.
The rhetoric on both sides of the fence is at the breaking point.
