Italian Senate starts debate on ejecting Berlusconi
(ANSA) – Rome, November 27 – The Italian Senate on Wednesday began a debate on whether to strip ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi of his Senate seat after the supreme court upheld a tax-fraud conviction against him in August, making it definitive.
The 77-year-old media magnate, the dominant figure in Italian politics for two decades, looked set to lose a vote that scheduled to take place later on Wednesday and be ejected from parliament.
Premier Enrico Letta’s centre-right Democratic Party (PD) and the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) have said they will back the ejection and should be able to form a majority for the vote. Berlusconi says the tax-fraud conviction, his first definitive sentence in two decades of legal battles, is part of a campaign of persecution by left-wing elements in the judiciary who allegedly want to sweep him from the country’s political arena.
He also argues that the 2012 anti-corruption law under which he looks set to be ejected from parliament is being applied retroactively in his case, which is against the Italian Constitution.
The anti-corruption law was adopted before the supreme court upheld the tax-fraud conviction, although the original sentence predates it.
The three-time premier has said his ejection would be a “coup” and is furious that the PD is backing the bid for him to be stripped of his parliamentary seat, accusing the party of “political homicide”.
His centre-right Forza Italia party pulled its support for Letta’s left-right coalition government and joined the opposition on Tuesday.
Letta’s government has managed to stay afloat with the support of Deputy Premier and Interior Minister Angelino Alfano’s New Centre Right (NCD) party, which is made up of moderates who this month split from Berlusconi’s loyalists. The NCD is against Berlusconi being ejected but its members rebelled against the ex-premier’s stance on withdrawing backing from the government over the issue, saying Italy cannot afford more political instability as it seeks to emerge from its longest recession in over 20 years. The billionaire was set to speak at a rally near his Rome home later on Wednesday close to the time of the start of voting. “I am persecuted,” he said Tuesday. “Parliament should not cede its sovereignty to an uncontrollable judiciary”. At around 19:00 on Wednesday the Upper House will vote on petitions presented against the recommendation of a Senate panel for Berlusconi to be turfed out of parliament.
Parliament sources said 13 had been presented early on Wednesday.
If these are not upheld, the vote on whether to eject Berlusconi will then take place. Soon after the start of the debate, Senate speaker Pietro Grasso dismissed objections from centre-right lawmakers that Wednesday’s vote should be secret.
The Senate panel that recommended Berlusconi’s ejection said the vote should be open, not secret as is traditional in such cases, amid speculation that some PD and M5S members, along with enough centrists, would take advantage of the secrecy of the ballot to save Berlusconi from expulsion. Berlusconi has said he will continue to lead his party even if he is no longer an MP in the same way that comedian-turned-politician Beppe Grillo does from outside parliament with the M5S. But the ex-premier has said he fears being at the mercy of Italian prosecutors if he loses his parliamentary immunity from being arrested and wiretapped. He is appealing a seven-year sentence for sex with an underage prostitute and abuse of power to cover it up and a one-year sentence for involvement in the publication of an illegally obtained wiretap. Berlusconi has been indicted on charges of bribing a Senator to switch sides too.
The 77-year-old was sentenced him to four years in jail for the tax-fraud sentence, commuted to a year because of an amnesty.
He has requested to serve the year by doing community service rather than under house arrest. The media magnate is too old to actually go to jail under Italian law.