Northern League figures must be wondering if this is finally the end for a political Houdini, writes PADDY AGNEWin Rome
ON A tempestuous day when just about everyone wanted to make either a pro-Berlusconi or an anti-Berlusconi statement, there was one significant, thundering silence. The federalist Northern League, for long Berlusconi’s most loyal coalition partner, had nothing to say yesterday about the news that the prime minister is to stand trial, charged with exploitation of underage prostitution and abuse of office.
Yesterday morning the league’s interior minister, Roberto Maroni, and Silvio Berlusconi travelled to Sicily to see for themselves the size of the humanitarian emergency represented by the 5,000 Tunisian refugees who had arrived in Sicily. The news of the pending “Rubygate” trial, however, cut short the visit with the prime minister spending just a half hour in Mineo, visiting the site of a possible refugee centre.
It came as no surprise when, contrary to previous indications, Berlusconi skipped the news conference that followed his brief visit, opting instead to rush back to Rome.
Clearly, he had other things on his mind. What was surprising, though, was one of the answers that Maroni gave at that press conference. Asked about Berlusconi’s pending trial, he said: “I have nothing to say about that.”
On a day when senior members of the prime minister’s People of Freedom party (PDL) were vying with one another to defend the boss, accusing the Milan judiciary of waging a politically biased witchhunt against Berlusconi, his most solid allies had nothing to say – neither Maroni nor party leader Umberto Bossi nor any other Northern League figure.
Over the years, few Italian politicians (perhaps only Berlusconi himself) have shown better political nous than Bossi. Time and again, he has read the mood of his “Padania people” with vote-gathering accuracy.
One is entitled to wonder just how he has read the latest incident on the accident-strewn, rollercoaster that is Berlusconi’s political life.
Will he have paid attention to yesterday's survey in the online edition of Catholic weekly Famiglia Cristiana, where some 96 per cent of online readers called on Berlusconi to resign?
Or did he tune into Sky Italia’s news bulletins where, throughout yesterday afternoon, 79 per cent of viewers also called on the prime minister to quit?
Or what did he make of the massive women’s protests last weekend, when more than one million people took to the streets of 230 cities in Italy, along with thousands more in 30 capitals around the world in what was, essentially, an anti-Berlusconi protest?
Could it be that Bossi, like other commentators, has begun to wonder if even Houdini Berlusconi can wriggle out of this one? And can he do so in time to ensure a series of long-desired federalist measures called for by the league electorate?
Bossi, like everyone else, will have noticed that between now and April 6th, the prime minister is due in court not just in the Rubygate trial but also in three other separate trials, involving his Mediatrade and Mediaset companies and in which he stands accused of embezzlement, fraud and bribery (of English lawyer, David Mills, estranged husband of former Labour minister Teresa Jowell). Bossi just might be thinking to himself that even if and when Berlusconi manages to wriggle out of that lot, it does not leave him a lot of time either to govern the country or promote pro-league measures.
Put simply, is history about to repeat itself and see Bossi pull the plug on Berlusconi, as he did back in 1994?
Meanwhile, opposition forces must last night have begun to think that the slogan for the women’s protest marches last weekend may have been prophetic when applied to the possible decline and fall of Silvio Berlusconi – “If Not Now, When?”