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Berlusconi Facing Gaol, Wants A Fight

  • October 29th, 2012
  • Posted by 7thmin

berlusconi-two-2001-ecthumbnail1.jpgThe former Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, sentenced to four years gaol on Friday, says that in response he may get back  into the political war — against austerity budgets.

NEVER GOING QUIETLY

He was nudged out of office late last year  while well-distracted by his own involvement in a sex scandal, as the European debt crisis demanded urgent  management; fiddling with girls while Rome was ablaze with protest, as it were.

On the weekend, the media billionaire told one of his television  stations he might withdraw the numbers provided by his political group in parliament from his technocratic successor, Mario Monti.

WAVES OF PROTEST

Silvio Berlusconi (picture) the media-man may have looked out the window to see huge crowds in weekend protests in Italy, feeling the impacts of the squeeze on jobs and incomes.

The protests were being called “No-Monti Day” (27.10.12); turning on Monti might generate votes.

Contradictions in the argument notwithstanding; trying to catch a wave on that wave of sentiment would not be beyond the imagination of the man who marketed Forza Italia.

forza_italia.pngIn the era of the break-up of the post-war political framework in Italy (Euro-communists and socialists against the Christian Democrats), early 1990s, Silvio Berlusconi, now 76, crafted a new rightist political movement around a football theme – “Forward Italy!”, it says.

The policy: Italy was good; governments should check their spending and rely on the market.

STAND BY FOR APPEALS

For the moment the man is banned from holding office himself for five years, and must act in the coming fortnight to begin an appeal against the gaol sentence.

Already the court case, accusing Berlusconi and six others from his company Mediaset of inflating the cost of broadcast rights, to evade taxes, has taken six years.

He has survived a set of other convictions in lower courts, through conducting drawn-out appeals, pushing to the brink of the statute of limitations or, when in government office, seeking to re-jig the judicial process itself.

This time he suggested the justice system was flawed, and he might need to do something to get it corrected.

See also EUAustralia Online: “’I’m still here!’: Berlusconi”, 29.12.11; “Italy’s bunga-bunga man goes bung”, 14.11.11.

Reference

Philip Pullella, Reuters, “Berlusconi threatens to bring down Monti government”, 27.10.12. http://news.yahoo.com/italys-berlusconi-says-plans-stay-politics-122607229–finance.html, (28.10.12).

Colleen Barry, Associated Press, “Silvio Berlusconi faces verdict in tax fraud case”, 26.10.12. http://www.seattlepi.com/news/crime/article/Silvio-Berlusconi-faces-verdict-in-tax-fraud-case-3983670.php, (28.10.12).