THE CURRENT edition of Italian weekly magazine L'Espressocarries a black-and-white photograph of a young, determined-looking Silvio Berlusconi, sitting in his Milan office wearing a very fashionable suit, complete with cool Chelsea boots and longish hair. On the table behind Mr Berlusconi, in full view, sits a 357 Magnum revolver in its holster.
The photograph, taken in 1977 when the current Italian prime minister was an emerging industrialist, bears witness to the dangerous climate of mid-1970s Italy, a time when kidnapping of the wealthy became a small-time industry for organised (and not always so organised) crime.
Mr Berlusconi, as he himself explained to photographer Alberto Roveri, was taking the kidnap threat seriously and to that end kept a gun about his person. Quite clearly, he had no intention of going down without a fight.
As he heads into a long hot autumn, starting with a parliamentary vote today, the 73-year-old Mr Berlusconi will need to summon all his legendary survival skills. For much of the last six months, his centre-right governing coalition has been undermined by tensions between himself and his erstwhile ally, speaker of the lower house Gianfranco Fini, who has now founded his own parliamentary group, Future and Liberty (FLI).
Early this month in a keynote speech to his fledgling party faithful, Mr Fini again voiced his reservations about the Berlusconi government – in particular in relation to issues such as immigration, job creation and proposed “ad personam” legislation intended to resolve the prime minister’s outstanding judicial problems. On that occasion, however, Mr Fini stopped short of saying that he would vote against the government, arguing that his group would decide “issue by issue”.
One such “issue” comes up in parliament today when the lower house will be asked to allow investigating magistrates the right to use wiretaps featuring deputy Nicola Cosentino, the former Berlusconi government junior finance minister currently under investigation on charges of collusion with the camorra, the Neapolitan mafia. Mr Cosentino resigned his government post two months ago, partly in order to ensure that the government was not defeated on a no-confidence vote on his “situation”.
Throughout this legislature, the Berlusconi government has made no secret of its opposition to the widespread use of wire taps in Italian judicial investigations, and stigmatising media reporting of such “private” wire-tapped conversations. Despite his best efforts, however, Mr Berlusconi has thus far been unable to pass a so-called “gag law” that would have greatly curtailed the use of wiretaps by both judiciary and media alike.
Given that precedent, the Berlusconi majority is unlikely to today vote in favour of allowing the wiretaps to be used against Mr Cosentino. Yet Mr Fini’s FLI group seems determined to vote in favour of the wiretaps. An embarrassing government defeat cannot be ruled out.