Rome, October 09: Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has condemned Italy’s ‘democratic’ law as ‘farce’ after the country voted to strip the premier of his political immunity.
The 73-year-old politician has neared the end of his political life as Italy’s top legal body, the Constitutional Court, ruled on Wednesday to strip the media tycoon of his immunity to prosecution while in office of which three and a half years have remained, political commentators said on Thursday.
With the new constitutional measure described by some as court cases running a gamut of offenses from ‘womanizing’ to political corruption intended to outrun rivals in business and power.
His criminal charges even include colluding with Italy’s infamous mafia in a bid to hang onto his administration.
However, the Italian magnate took a swipe at the recent constitutional tribunal and described its verdict as “laughable.” In a Thursday speech, Berlusconi censured ‘Italy’s President [Giorgio Napolitano], the media, magistrates and the constitutional court as leftists scheming against him,’ Reuters reported.
The incumbent prime minister has also vowed to fight against the conspiratorial powers which ‘seek’ his ouster in a ‘politicized’ row.
“These two trials are laughable, they are a farce which I will illustrate to Italians also by going on TV,” said the Italian leader, adding elsewhere, “I will defend myself in the courtrooms and ridicule my accusers, showing all Italians what stuff I am made of.”
Berlusconi’s scandals appear to have political and economic repercussions for Eurozone’s third largest economy as analysts have voiced concerns about a ‘teetering’ government which has to salvage the Italy’s worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
“Berlusconi is very clearly coming to end of his line as a political leader … (This court ruling) is certainly not the end but it is another nail in the coffin,” Reuters quoted James Walston, political science professor at the American University of Rome as saying.
It is expected that the premier’s competitors both within his rightist party and from the left wing launch anti-Berlusconi campaigns and help revive court proceedings against him in an effort to replace the embattled politician.
—–Agencies