Blimey, Buffoon Berlusconi's Bad

[Jan Klimkowski]

"Berlusconi discovered I wasn't for sale and henceforth tried to convince Italians that I was a criminal," said Di Pietro.

A very old and very common play.

Old foe closes in on Silvio Berlusconi after 15-year feud

Anti-corruption campaigner Antonio Di Pietro believes last week's referendum defeat could spell the beginning of the end for Berlusconi

Tom Kington The Observer, Sunday 19 June 2011

After one of the worst weeks of Silvio Berlusconi's political career, the former magistrate who has spent the 15 years denouncing the prime minister's behaviour is pretty pleased with himself.

As a magistrate in the early 1990s, Antonio Di Pietro famously battled corruption in Italy's "clean hands" investigation, which led to the meltdown of the country's main political parties.

It was also Di Pietro who called for the referendum which defeated Berlusconi's plans to build nuclear power plants and privatise the water supply. The setback, following disastrous local election results, prompted even close allies to wonder if the media mogul had reached the end of his political shelf life. Di Pietro is jubilant. "Right now is the moment to rebuild Italy," he told the Observer, "and we must find an alternative to Silvio Berlusconi, whether he likes it or not."

Berlusconi's poll numbers have tumbled from 40% to 29% in the wake of his trials for bribery and alleged payment to a teenage runaway for sex. Two weeks before the Di Pietro-inspired referendum, Berlusconi's party, Il Popolo della Libertà (The People of Freedom), lost control of Milan the prime minister's heartland when a former Communist won the local mayoral election. The push for the referendum was buoyed by support from web campaigns and Facebook, which proliferated despite the limited coverage of the vote on Italy's state-controlled TV networks.

Di Pietro senses belated vindication. The rough-and-ready former magistrate's run-ins with Berlusconi over the past 15 years are the stuff of legend. The magistrate emerged from the "clean hands" probe as one of Italy's most popular men, prompting Berlusconi to offer him a job as interior minister after the media mogul was first elected prime minister in 1994.

According to Marco Travaglio, an Italian journalist who has documented Berlusconi's tangles with the law, Berlusconi took Di Pietro's rejection badly. "Di Pietro turned him down then," he said, "and again in 1995, prompting the entourage of Berlusconi to cook up a series of false dossiers revealing alleged corruption, which kept Di Pietro tied up in the courts during the mid-90s proving his innocence. The mud-slinging machine that Berlusconi has used against his ex-wife and others was honed on Di Pietro."

"Berlusconi discovered I wasn't for sale and henceforth tried to convince Italians that I was a criminal," said Di Pietro. The feud has never stopped.

Di Pietro, who founded his own political party, Italy of Values, has described Berlusconi as the "rapist of democracy" and "an arrogant little dictator" who entered politics to escape justice. Berlusconi has in turn claimed the former magistrate "put innocent people in prison, ruining their lives and their families" during the "clean hands" campaign.

According to Di Pietro, it is largely down to Berlusconi that Italy's fraud and corruption problems are almost as bad now as they were in the early 1990s. Tax evasion amounts to the equivalent of 16% of gross domestic product, while the country's mafia clans boast revenues of around €135bn (£120bn).

"Berlusconi introduced the idea that you can do what you want," Di Pietro said. "Today the first thought of anyone with a title, from mayor down to parking attendant, is: who can I cheat?"

Asked if Italy is suffering from an honesty deficit, Di Pietro said: "Yes, but this is because people see politicians paying less for their crimes and are encouraged to try to scam everyone else."

The tide is finally turning, he argues. Apart from defeating the government's plans for nuclear power and water privatisation, the referendum also overturned Berlusconi's law allowing ministers to use official business as an excuse to delay trials they are involved in. "Before, Berlusconi was saying 'I can do whatever I like'. Well, he can't say that any more," said Di Pietro.

The stinging defeat, he said, would make Berlusconi think twice about his next reported measure a law to shorten trials which would be likely to "time out" those he is already involved in: "If he tries that, we could be looking at a real revolt in Italy."