Sleeping with the Enemy?
Italy’s two main political parties are often shortened by the media to the PD and the PDL. At times it is difficult to understand which political party is being referred to. Recently, things have become much more confusing.
At the best of times Italian politics is a confused muddled affair. Indeed, things are becoming so darned confused that the supposedly right wing likes of Umberto Bossi, the head of Italy’s radical Northern League party, plus party stalwart, and Italian minster for reform, Roberto Calderoli, participated in a rally organised in Florence by Bossi’s supposed political opponents - the PD. Doesn’t Mr Bossi lean towards Silvio Berlusconi’s bunch? Well, he still does, although after this news, one has no idea for how much longer. Or is something more sinister at work. Read more
Admiral Veltroni v Admiral Berlusconi
Veltroni’s latest attempt to sink Berlusconi’s ship is a petition against Italy’s charismatic and controversial prime minister.
Think of Italy’s main political parties as having been two moderately large ships. At the same time, all the little Italian political parties were a bunch of mercenary gunboats who would side with whichever of the biggest ships looked strongest at the time. Read more
A Cat’s Chance in Hell
If you were unaware, which you may be if you are not from Italy, most of the public TV stations here are influenced by Italy’s rag tag bunch of political masters. This means that the news is presented in such a way as to support the ruling junta.
People are aware of this, especially Antonio Di Pietro’s Italia dei Valori political party, which is about the only party which is attempting to represent the wishes of the Italian people. Trying to make the TV channels here a little more impartial is also one of Di Pietro’s aims. (The English version of Di Pietro’s web site is not working at the moment - I wonder why).
To achieve this purpose, Di Pietro, along with Italy’s Radical party got together to propose Leoluca Orlando for the position of president of the body which watches over Italy’s RAI state TV network. Only the candidature is being firmly blocked by Berlusconi’s boys, who obviously fear losing the ability to manipulate the way in which RAI is operated.
In protest, Italy’s Radicals have staged a sit-in at the premises of the watchdog which monitors RAI.
As a matter of interest, Leoluca Orlando is an ex-mayor of Palermo, and is strongly anti-mafia. This is something which may not endear him to all those politicians whose fingers are stuck in Italy’s pie, and who have ‘friends’ whose wishes must be respected.
Despite the support of Italy’s Radical party and their mini-protest, Mr Orlando has a cat’s chance in hell of winning the presidency, which will be handed to someone much more ‘friendly’. Just wait and see.
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