THOUSANDS OF Italians took to the streets of Rome last Saturday to call for the resignation of prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
Even as the protesters were highlighting recent allegations that the prime minister colluded with organised crime, Mr Berlusconi defiantly pointed to the arrests on Saturday of two senior mafiosi, 74-year-old Gaetano Fidanzati in Milan and 28-year-old Gianni Nicchi, as proof of his government’s determination to fight the Mafia.
Largely organised on the internet, Saturday’s protest was called “No B (Berlusconi) Day”. Many of the protesters took their inspiration from a court hearing in Turin on Friday where a former mafioso, Gaspare Spatuzza, had alleged that Mr Berlusconi’s nascent political party, Forza Italia, had in 1993-94 successfully sought the political support of the Mafia in Sicily.
The prime minister said Saturday’s high-profile arrests were the best possible response to “all the slander generated by irresponsible people who are only slinging mud”.
At a demonstration where mainstream opposition leaders were either absent or took a back seat, a keynote speaker was Salvatore Borsellino, brother of Paolo Borsellino, the Sicily-based magistrate who was killed by the Mafia in 1992. “Organised crime put Berlusconi in power and now it wants to put him out because he has not maintained his promises . . . We should put him out ourselves. Keep the Mafia out of the State,” said Mr Borsellino.