Italian right wing mobilizes against Prodi government

Last week, under pressure from the right-wing opposition, the Electoral Oversight Committee of the Senate, the second chamber of parliament, decided to permit the examination of 700,000 blank and invalid ballot papers in seven regions. If irregularities are found the checks will be extended into other regions and any valid ballots will be included in a recount. Since the election result was extremely close it cannot be excluded that this process could result in a change of government.

Silvio Berlusconi, the loser in the election, has already raised the issue of electoral fraud, continually designating the centre-left government of Romano Prodi as “illegitimate.” Now he is crowing over the decision to examine the ballot result.

There are clear indications, however, that it was not the Prodi camp that falsified the election result, but rather those supporting Berlusconi. Enrico Deaglio, editor-in-chief of the magazine Diario, recently presented a documentary accusing the right wing of manipulating a computer system to falsify the results in their favour.

In contrast to the right wing, which exhibits brazen audacity when making its accusations, the defence mounted by the government camp is limp and weak, seeking appeasement and conciliation. In the Senate the government parties even voted to support the examination of ballot papers. They justified their capitulation to Berlusconi’s pressure with the argument that this could “detoxify” the political climate and make political debate more objective. Accordingly, Berlusconi would then have no grounds for calling the government illegitimate—as if this right-wing demagogue has ever worried about the truth of his accusations!

Berlusconi is not limiting his efforts to bring down the Prodi government to merely contesting the election result. He is mobilizing dissatisfied middle-class layers and lumpen social elements, urging them to take to the streets. And he is quite prepared to engage in an open pact with fascistic elements.

Right-wing mass demonstration

On Saturday, December 2, a large right-wing demonstration cheered Berlusconi when he appeared in the Piazza San Giovanni in Rome. Estimates of the number of participants stretch from “tens of thousands” to over 700,000 (according to the police), up to an improbable “2 million”—which is the figure boasted by Berlusconi’s Forza Italia.

But even if it were “only” a hundred thousand, such a mass demonstration by the opposition, with right-wing populists and neo-fascist demagogues at its head, is a serious warning to the Italian working class. The betrayal of the old workers’ parties, which reached its zenith when Rifondazione Comunista (Communist Refoundation) entered the Prodi government and supported the 2007 budget, provides the reactionary forces around Berlusconi with an opportunity to gain a mass public hearing.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2006/dec2006/ital-d12.shtml