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A chorus of Handel's "Alleluia," performed by a few dozen singers and classical musicians, rang out in front of the president's palace as thousands of Italians poured into downtown Rome to rejoice at the end of Berlusconi's scandal-marred reign. Hecklers shouted "Buffoon, Buffoon!" as Berlusconi's motorcade entered and exited the presidential palace, where he tendered his resignation to President Giorgio Napolitano, the palace said in a statement. Respected former European commissioner Mario Monti remained the top choice to try to steer the country out of its debt woes as the head of a transitional government, but Berlusconi's allies remained split over whether to support him.
Their opposition wasn't expected to scuttle Napolitano's plans to ask Monti to try to form an interim government once Berlusconi resigns, but it could make Monti's job more difficult. Napolitano is expected to hold consultations Sunday with all of Italy's political forces before proceeding with his expected nomination of Monti. Late Saturday, Berlusconi's party said it would support Monti, albeit with conditions. Berlusconi's resignation was set in motion after the Chamber of Deputies, with a vote Saturday of 380-26 with two abstentions, approved economic reforms which include increasing the retirement age starting in 2026 but do nothing to open up Italy's inflexible labor market.
The Senate approved it a day earlier and Napolitano signed the legislation Saturday afternoon, paving the way for Berlusconi to leave office as he promised to do after losing his parliamentary majority earlier in the week. He chaired his final Cabinet meeting Saturday evening. Berlusconi stood as lawmakers applauded him in the parliament chamber immediately after the vote. But outside his office and in front of government palazzos across town, hundreds of curiosity-seekers massing to witness the final hours of his government heckled him and his ministers. "Shame!" and "Get Out!" the crowds yelled, many toting "Bye Bye Silvio Party" posters as they marched through downtown Rome in a festive indication that for many Italians, like financial markets, the time had come for Berlusconi to go.
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He has vowed he won't run again for office, though few expect he'll abandon Italian politics for good. Berlusconi himself has already said he might help out a campaign here or there because, well, "they've always turned out well for me." But with Berlusconi's resignation as premier Saturday following months of market turmoil, a political era in Italy closes and the 75-year-old Berlusconi is just a billionaire businessman once again. "What we are viewing now is not the end of a government, but the end of a system, of a political system," said Massimo Franco, a political analyst for leading daily Corriere Della Sera. Indeed, Berlusconi dominated Italian politics for the last 17 years, a polarizing figure who served three terms as premier. He held off political opponents and jousted with magistrates pursuing him on corruption and sexual misconduct charges, but was felled by massive international and market pressure.
The media mogul had thrived rubbing shoulders with the powerful, whether vacationing with Russia's Vladimir Putin or getting a taste of Texas ranch life when hosted by then President George W. Bush in a meeting of Iraq war allies. But seen as an impediment to economic reform, his exit came quickly as Italy was swept up by Europe's debt crisis. Whether he goes back to running his media empire or even returning to the vacant post as president of his beloved AC Milan soccer team, he faces an unpleasant agenda. Judging from how his media voices are reacting, it won't be a completely quiet exit. "Stop a Europe of technocrats," clamored a headline in the family newspaper Il Giornale of Italy's presumed new government headed by economist Mario Monti. "This government is a coup."
Berlusconi's resignation will mean he can no longer claim official government business as a reason for missing hearings in his three trials, a tactic that has been used to delay proceedings. His attempt at fashioning a law that would have given him immunity was overturned by the Constitutional Court. But charges in two Milan trials related to his business dealings will run out due to the statute of limitations early next year leaving little peril that the billionaire would face any penalty even if courts can reach a conviction in the first trial. The Italian system allows for two levels of appeal. Berlusconi is expected to testify before Christmas in his trial on charges of paying British lawyer David Mills to lie for him on the stand in another case. A verdict is expected in late January, but with the statute of limitations set to expire in March, it is impossible that two levels of appeal could be completed to make any verdict final.
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Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will wait to see who his center-left adversaries choose as their candidate for elections expected in March before deciding whether to run himself, he said on Monday. In his latest switch of position, Berlusconi, who previously ruled out running, said he would wait to see whether the left chose frontrunner Democratic Party (PD) leader Pier Luigi Bersani, 61, or his younger rival Matteo Renzi in a second-round vote on December 2.
Renzi, the 37-year-old mayor of Florence who is running as a modernizer and lagged former communist Bersani in a first-round vote on Sunday, would be a tougher rival to Berlusconi in the election to succeed Mario Monti as prime minister, a poll showed last week. "With Renzi, Italy could have a Social Democratic party like other countries such as Germany and England," Berlusconi said in an interview with his Canale 5 television.
The 76-year-old media billionaire's once-dominant People of Freedom party (PDL) is third in opinion polls, trailing the PD by more than 10 percentage points and behind comic Beppe Grillo's nascent anti-establishment 5-Star Movement by about five points. Berlusconi's credibility was reduced to tatters a year ago when he resigned to make room for Monti's technocrat government amid charges he had sex with an underage prostitute.
The magnate did not confirm reports in newspapers including Il Giornale, a right-wing daily owned by his family, that he would form a new party that could be unveiled later this week. Italy needs a complete transformation, Berlusconi said. "I think that it's right for someone who had the honor of leading the Italian government for almost 10 years to reflect on the way to achieve this modernization of Italy, this liberal revolution," he said.
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Berlusconi made the accusation in an interview Tuesday with the La7 private television network, his latest in a series of media appearances ahead of Italy's Feb. 24-25 elections. Italian media initially reported that Berlusconi's divorce from his second wife Veronica Lario would cost him (EURO)36 million a year. That figure amounts to (EURO)3 million a month, or about (EURO)100,000 a day.
But Berlusconi said the figure, with arrears, was double that. While he didn't fully explain how he got to a (EURO)200,000 a day figure, he said he was ordered to pay Lario (EURO)36 million a year, with another (EURO)72 million in arrears. "These are three women judges, feminists and communists, OK?" he said. "These are the Milan judges who have persecuted me since 1994." In a joint statement Wednesday carried by the ANSA news agency, the president of the Milan tribunal and the head of the appeals court "strongly rejected any insinuation of partiality" of the tribunal's judges, whom they described as "diligent professionals."
The statement noted that both sides in the divorce have the right to appeal the decision. Lario filed for divorce in 2009, citing Berlusconi's fondness for younger women. The 76-year-old billionaire media mogul, who is currently dating someone nearly 50 years his junior, is on trial in Milan accused of paying for sex with an underage Moroccan teen and using his office to cover it up. He and the girl deny the charges.
Berlusconi also was convicted by another Milan judge of tax fraud last year and is appealing that decision. A ruling in the pay-for-sex case could come before elections next month. Berlusconi has been on a media blitz in recent weeks, seeking to boost his party's chances. Polls currently give the lead to the center-left Democratic Party, with Berlusconi's People of Freedom party and the civic movement of Premier Mario Monti vying for second and third place.
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In the latest skirmish between the billionaire media magnate and the judiciary, the heads of the Milan tribunal and court of appeal issued a curt statement saying they firmly rejected any insinuation of partiality on the part of the magistrates who drew up the three-time prime ministers divorce settlement, which he claims amounts to 200,000 euros (US$261,200) a day.
Livia Pomodoro and Giovanni Canzio added that their colleagues were diligent professionals and called on politicians to avoid making any expression of derision that could cause the public to think otherwise. The retort followed the latest in a succession of lengthy television interviews with Berlusconi, 76, which have become a fixture of Italian politics in the run-up to next months elections.
Questioned on the La7 private TV network about his divorce from his second wife, former actor Veronica Lario, Berlusconi said the settlement amounted to 36 million euros a year, with 72 million euros in arrears. He also said it meant paying Lario 200,000 euros a day, although it was unclear how he had calculated that figure. These are three women judges, feminists and communists, OK? These are the Milan judges who have persecuted me since 1994, he said.
The claim that he is the victim of a vindictive, leftwing judiciary has been a key part of Berlusconis political persona ever since he first came to power in the mid-1990s. When he was found guilty of tax fraud by a Milan court last year and sentenced to four years in prison, he retorted that the decision was a political sentence, the way so many other trials invented against me have been political. He is appealing against the verdict.
Berlusconi rebuked for comments on TV against magistrates - Taipei Times
