Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is likely to dig in his heels after being ordered to stand trial but ultimately he will not be able to stem the tide heading toward early elections, commentators said today.
“Objectively speaking, Berlusconi is worn down and gasping for breath,” wrote Massimo Franco, a leading political commentator for the Corriere della Sera newspaper.
In perhaps the hardest blow in a string of judicial problems, a judge ordered Berlusconi (picture) to stand trial in April on charges of paying an underage girl for sex and abuse of office for intervening with police to get her freed from custody.
He has so far not commented on the indictment but his lieutenants have blasted the trial order as what they call another calculated move by leftist magistrates to destroy his political career.
But the momentum against him seems to be building. The trial date was set two days after hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated throughout the country demanding his immediate resignation.
“Berlusconi is now in a defensive position and (the court order) breathes electoral hope into an opposition that smells a precious opportunity to beat him,” Franco said.
Another influential commentator, Stefano Folli of the economic daily Il Sole 24 Ore, said: “It’s obvious that the legislature is over and parliament is heading towards a paralysis.”
The timing of elections before the next scheduled national vote in 2013 depends how long Berlusconi’s increasingly fragile coalition can stick together, commentators said.
The sex scandal has riveted Italy and, commentators say, caused untold damage to the country’s image abroad.
Much will depend on the position of the Northern League and its mercurial leader Umberto Bossi.
Bossi, speaking after centre-right leaders held crisis talks with Berlusconi yesterday night, was quoted as telling the prime minister that “the moment is difficult but I am standing by you”.
Commentators say Bossi is biding his time until federalists reforms are in place to placate his northern constituents and then will pull the plug on the coalition, as he did in 1994 when he provoked the collapse of Berlusconi’s first government.
“EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF”
“Let’s get federalism passed and then it’s every man for himself,” the La Republica newspaper quoted Bossi as telling his lieutenants before Tuesday night’s meeting.
Berlusconi’s legal problems have added a complicating factor to a political situation already tangled by a split in the People of Freedom coalition last year, which left Berlusconi barely clinging to power.
The government survived a no-confidence motion in parliament in December by a small margin. Since then, Berlusconi has gradually built up support by winning over deputies from smaller centrist parties and splinter formations.
Italian media have been dominated for weeks by the alleged prostitution affair, which turns on the case of a teenaged Moroccan nightclub dancer named Karima el Mahroug, whose stage name Ruby has become a household term in Italy.
Prosecutors say they have ample evidence that Berlusconi paid el Mahroug for sex when she was under 18 — an offence in Italy — and also telephoned a police station to pressure officers to release her after she was held on theft allegations.
She denies having sex with Berlusconi but admits receiving at least €7,000 euros (RM29,000) after attending a party at the premier’s luxurious private residence at Arcore near Milan.
Berlusconi has denied doing anything illegal in the case and says he has been targeted by politically motivated judges backed by the left who are determined to bring him down.
He says he has never paid for sex and says that when he telephoned the Milan police station it was because he believed el Mahroug to be the granddaughter of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and he wanted to avoid a diplomatic incident.
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