Italy Victor Apparently Clears Way to Govern : Politics: Billionaire Berlusconi seems to have struck deal with junior partner in right-wing alliance. Analysts welcome news as sign of stability.
ROME — Overnight political sensation Silvio Berlusconi apparently overcame objections from a fractious partner in his victorious right-wing electoral alliance Wednesday, clearing the media baron’s path to become Italian prime minister.
The 57-year-old billionaire, who emerged from weekend elections as leader of the country’s biggest political party, told reporters in his hometown of Milan that he expects quick formation of a government with himself at its head.
Italian analysts welcomed the news as a tonic for stability. They cautioned, though, that there are still any number of Machiavellian intricacies to be played out before any new government can take office in mid-April.
Berlusconi made his remarks after meeting in Milan with Umberto Bossi, head of the federalist, sometimes secessionist Northern League, junior partner in the three-party alliance that rewrote Italian political history by toppling corrupt centrist parties from nearly half a century of power.
“I guaranteed the possibility of good government to this country. . . . I am personally sure that we will do it, and do it soon,†Berlusconi said. “I think that government must be guided by the pole which won, and Berlusconi is the leader of this force,†he added, referring to himself in the third person.
The abrasive Bossi, who sometimes talks of dividing Italy into three states, ran in the weekend election in tandem with Berlusconi’s 3-month-old Forza Italia (Go Italy) movement and the neo-fascist National Alliance headed by Gianfranco Fini.
When the conservatives emerged with a stunning victory, Bossi immediately ruled out collaborating in a government with Fini, whose southern-based party--the direct descendant of former dictator Benito Mussolini--believes in a strong central government.
Bossi also said he would veto Berlusconi for the prime minister’s job because he is a leading member of an Italian business Establishment that needs reform in the wake of its decades of conspiracy with politicians and their parties in institutionalized corruption.
Berlusconi, whose Fininvest empire had sales of around $7 billion last year, is attacked by critics for his close ties to his corruption-linked friend and former prime minister, Bettino Craxi.
The would-be prime minister, who jumped into politics two months ago because he feared a leftist victory, has not been named in a scandal that has tarred other leading Italian industrialists.
For all his reservations, Bossi was nearly as upbeat as Berlusconi after their first post-election meeting, which he said focused mostly on forging a common government program. “We found partial and reciprocal satisfaction. Next week we hope to tie things up,†Bossi told reporters.
Italian analysts said Bossi has apparently agreed to a Northern League representative, but not himself, as deputy prime minister on the further understanding that Fini would not join the government, although members of his party would get ministerial posts.
Asked whether Bossi had dropped his objections, Berlusconi told Italian reporters: “I think that was the conclusion of our meeting.â€
For his part, Fini, 42, who has renamed the neo-fascists and moved them away from the extreme right, said he was “trusting and optimistic of an agreement.â€
Under Fini, the party’s vote has swelled. It controls nearly one-third of the right’s 366 seats in the new 630-member Chamber of Deputies.
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