Senate
votes to strip former prime minister of seat despite his claims that new
evidence will exonerate him
theguardian.com, Lizzy Davies in Rome, Wednesday 27 November 2013
 |
| Silvio Berlusconi makes a speech in Rome on the day the Senate voted to expel him. Photograph: Tony Gentile/Reuters |
Silvio Berlusconi suffered arguably the heaviest blow of his political career on
Wednesday when the upper house of parliament voted to oust him following a
conviction for tax fraud.
A hostile
front of the centre-left and anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) voted
against the former prime minister, who pulled his Forza Italia party from
Enrico Letta's governing coalition and into opposition on Tuesday.
Berlusconi
was not present for the Senate vote. But shortly before the chamber approved
his expulsion he gave a defiant address to supporters outside his residence in
central Rome, declaring a "day of mourning for democracy" and
promising that he would remain on the political scene.
"Today
they are toasting because they can take an adversary, they say a friend, in
front of the executioner's squad," Berlusconi said. "It is the day
they have been waiting for for 20 years."
He pledged
to continue his role as a political leader, citing other figures not in
Parliament, namely the founder of the M5S, Beppe Grillo, and Matteo Renzi of
the Democratic Party, tipped by many as a future premier candidate.
"Also,
from outside the Parliament, we can continue to fight for our liberty," he
said.
Berlusconi,
who resigned as PM in late 2011 amid concerns over Italy's growing financial
instability, received his first definitive conviction in 20 years of legal
battles on 1 August. He was sentenced to four years in prison, commuted to one
year of community service.
The debate
over the parliamentary ramifications of the conviction has dominated the
national political scene for the past four months. The 77-year-old media
magnate has issued alternate pleas and threats in an attempt to avoid being
stripped of his seat under a law passed last year – with the support of his
then party, the Freedom People – which stipulates that MPs convicted of serious
criminal offences must be ineligible for parliament.
Berlusconi
kept up the battle until the last minute, claiming on Monday to have new
evidence that he said would exonerate him, and begging his fellow senators to
put off the vote until the documents had been examined.
He insists
the conviction is another sign of his continuing persecution by leftwing
judges. He has indicated that Giorgio Napolitano, the Italian president, should
pardon him without him having to ask – an idea that drew a terse response from
the former communist head of state.
He is
expected to begin serving his sentence next year for the tax fraud conviction,
which related to a complex system of illegally inflated invoices at his
Mediaset television empire. But this is not the end of his legal woes. Among
other matters, he has been ordered to stand trial on charges of bribing a
senator in an attempt to bring down Romano Prodi's government, and is appealing
against a first-grade conviction handed down in June for having sex with an
underage girl and abusing his office to cover it up. He denies the allegations
in both cases.
Despite his
expulsion, Berlusconi will by no means disappear from the political scene. His
future role has been compared to that of Beppe Grillo, the M5S's figurehead who
himself has not been elected.
The
expulsion vote will heighten the tensions that have plagued the Letta
government from its inception this year, even if, with a breakaway centre-right
group that remains loyal to the coalition, it has a reasonably secure if small
majority.
With their
leader kicked out of the senate, Forza Italia MPs could prove highly disruptive
in opposition and could stymie the kind of institutional reforms Letta says he
wants to pass.
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