Italy:Italy's shaky centre-left coalition government suffered another damaging blow yesterday when justice minister Clemente Mastella, in a dramatic and emotional speech to parliament, offered his resignation after he and his wife came under investigation in a corruption inquiry.
Up to last night prime minister Romano Prodi had refused to accept the resignation, while commentators claimed that the minister's actions were unlikely to precipitate a government crisis. Mr Mastella controls three seats in the upper house or Senate, where Mr Prodi clings to power with a majority of just two seats.
Mr Mastella, leader of the small ex-Christian Democrat UDEUR party, has been something of an unhappy camper throughout this legislature. In the past he has threatened resignation over threatened electoral reform and the introduction of legislation to protect the rights of unmarried couples.
When it emerged two months ago that his phone had been tapped in the context of an investigation into alleged corruption in the southern region of Calabria, he had also threatened to step down.
The minister's wife, Sandra Lonardo, also a politician who heads the Campania regional council, was yesterday placed under house arrest over a corruption scandal in the region. According to the minister, this latest judicial action was merely the latest attempt to discredit him.
Before it emerged from court documents that Mr Mastella himself, and other party and family members, were also under investigation, the minister had said in his speech to parliament that if he had to choose between his family and power, he would choose the former. He described his wife as a "hostage", arguing that he had come under attack from an "extremist fringe" of the judiciary.
"My illusions were today smashed up against a wall of brutality. I had hoped that the tensions between the magistrates and the political class could be resolved. But now I have got to accept that, even though I worked day and night to become a reliable interlocutor, a certain extremist fringe perceives me as an adversary to be contrasted, if not an enemy to be knocked down.
"My entire family have had their phones tapped, my party has been investigated by the magistrates in Potenza."