Renata Polverini, the PDL candidate for president of the Lazio region, has called for a demonstration in Rome on Thursday afternoon, after a first court appeal failed to reintroduce her list on Tuesday. "They want a trial of strength from the streets, we will give it to them," she told reporters. "We will be ever so many."

A few hundred turned up in Piazza Farnese. Polverini tried to get them to sing a song by Lucio Battisti. During the rally it was announced that Polverini had been readmitted in the polls.

AS FOR NOW: Berlusconi has just licensed off a decree that would readmit his party back in the competition in Lombardy and Rome (21:35 local time). The decree, as reported here today, will cause a harsh confrontation in parliament as well as with the President of the Republic. Di Pietro has characterized Berlusconi's act as putsch. He stated a few minutes ago that the armed forces should be called out to block the impending dictatorship. Less polemic voices point out that the decree violates the constitution.

The decree is seen as an outright abuse of power without precedent. In the past, parties have been excluded from elections on similar grounds. In some cases elections have been called null because of grave procedural or substantive irregularities. It sufficed to repeat the elections. In no case has parliament ever intervened with ad hoc legislation to favour a party's readmission in an electoral contest.

The scenarios that open up may see a massive boycott of the elections by the left which would play into the hands of the rightwing. If the President refuses to sign the decree, the Rightwing may be tempted into adventurism to will a grave institutional crisis. It appears Berlusconi is gambling on his adversaries' prudence which would lead to having him get his way.

Berlusconi is at his best in attack and has always made gains by forcing events to accomplished facts, invariably by illegal means. His blackout of all in depth news programs will keep large parts of the public in the dark while his authoritarian control over primetime news programs will disinform the public.

The entire affair has distracted attention from the grave scandals that implicate Berlusconi's closest collaborators.

On another case today, the Court of Appeals has condemned all 44 of the police officers and doctors that participated in the Bolzaneto beatings during the Genova G8 in 2001. In the first trial only 15 were found guilty of torture. Thanks to laws passed by Prodi and Berlusconi the statute of limitations has timed out the sentence. Nevertheless, just as in the Mill's guilty sentence, the guilty must pay damages to the victims.