Un pò di rassegna stampa inglese sulla crisi: 25 gennaio 2008

Guardian
 
Berlusconi eyes return to power in Italy
Italy’s president, Giorgi Napolitano, will begin consulting political leaders today on the country’s future after the collapse last night of Romano Prodi’s centre-left government. (…)
A member of Berlusconi’s inner circle told the Guardian that he expected to be prime minister – a post he last held in 2006 – by autumn at the latest. In Rome, the media mogul’s “post-fascist” allies marched down a street in the city centre singing the national anthem.
Setting aside the bickering that has characterised the Italian right in recent months, their leader, Gianfranco Fini, said: “We feel ready to govern if the Italians will put their faith in us.”
The senate result was declared at the end of a tumultuous debate in which one senator was spat on and called a “squalid poof” and had to be carried from the chamber on a stretcher. Another hobbled forward to cast his vote on crutches. He had been driven to Rome from near Milan in an ambulance for the vote. (…)
Berlusconi allies alleged that the government was “buying” votes with dubious favours.
The Prodi government was plunged into crisis on Monday when it was deserted by a tiny party whose leader, the former justice minister, left the cabinet on learning he was a suspect in a corruption inquiry. Other small groups and some individuals subsequently peeled off. (…)
The former EU commission president’s term of office has seen modest economic growth, but for many Italians its benefits have been offset by tax rises imposed to get the public finances within limits set by membership of the euro.
An announcement last month by the EU’s statistical office that Spaniards were now earning more in real terms than Italians dented national morale.
Days later rubbish began piling up in Naples – a tangible sign of political mismanagement and the pervasive influence on Italian society of organised crime. The rubbish crisis was the latest of several to which Prodi’s government has reacted sluggishly. Its poor crisis management and incessant bickering within the coalition, began to wear down popular support.
According to the latest poll, carried out for the state-owned Rai broadcasting corporation, Berlusconi and his rightwing allies enjoy a 15-point lead.

BBC Online

Talks to end Italian crisis begin
(…) Under the current system rushed in by Mr Berlusconi during his time as prime minister, smaller parties with only a handful of seats hold the balance of power in parliament.
This is what caused the current crisis. The loss of the small, centrist Udeur party’s three seats in the upper house left Mr Prodi without a majority and requiring the support of several unelected life senators. (…)
(…) Members of his coalition cracked open champagne to celebrate Mr Prodi’s defeat and the flamboyant former prime minister announced a surprise party at his house in Rome. “We will say what we want to do in the first 100 days of our government,” said Mr Berlusconi. (…)

Times Online

Italian President in crisis talks after coalition collapse
(…) The Centre Right popped open champagne bottles last night, with Silvio Berlusconi, the opposition leader and media tycoon, exclaiming jubilantly: “To the ballot boxes!” (…)
As Mr Prodi’s loss of the confidence vote in the Senate was announced right-wing senators openly swigged from champagne bottles on the Senate benches and stuffed mortadella sausage into their mouths to mock Mr Prodi, who comes from Bologna, where mortadella is a local speciality.
One Christian Democrat senator who announced that he would back Mr Prodi after all fainted after he was spat on and assaulted in the chamber. In the streets outside black-shirted members of the “post-Fascist” Alleanza Nazionale, part of Mr Berlusconi’s alliance, careered around in open trucks waving flags and singing the national anthem.
President Napolitano has made it clear that he is against elections under the present system of proportional representation because they would again produce an array of parties in Parliament, prolonging Italy’s record of fragmented and unstable coalitions. (…)
The Centre Right is also in disarray, with both Gianfranco Fini, head of Alleanza Nazionale, and Pierferdinando Casini, of the Christian Democratic CDU, barely bothering to conceal their dislike of Mr Berlusconi and his buccaneering, gaffe-prone style. On the other hand both will no doubt swallow their rancour and swing back behind Mr Berlusconi at the prospect of a return to power. “We feel ready to govern if the Italians will put their faith in us,” Mr Fini said today.
Mr Prodi’s Government, made up of nine parties ranging from Communists to Catholics, was Italy’s 61st in 63 years.

Federica

bickering: bisticciare
poof: omosessuale (offensivo)
to hobble: zoppicare
crutches: stampelle
tiny: minuto, minuscolo
to dent: intaccare
sluggishly: pigramente