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Victory beckons for one-man
crusade against Berlusconi
By Bruce
Johnston in Florence
(Filed: 17/08/2003)
Outside the old Medici fortress, on a tree-lined
avenue near Santa Maria Novella station in Florence, a one-man
offensive is being waged to force Italian prime minister Silvio
Berlusconi to stand trial for corruption.
Like a medieval preacher, the charismatic opposition
senator Antonio Di Pietro is hailing passers-by, collecting
signatures for a petition to force a referendum to strike off the
statute books the
controversial law that gives Berlusconi immunity against corruption
charges while he is in office.
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Silvio Berlusconi |
Mr Di Pietro needs 500,000 names by September 26, a
goal well within reach. Day in and day out during the crippling
heatwave, the independent senator has criss-crossed Italy by road
and rail, armed only with personal zeal and a megaphone.
"Within two weeks, the objective will have been
reached," he says, shaking hands with crowds of onlookers who mob a
man they see as a hero of democracy. "I am going around Italy like a
madman."
By the end of last week, his self-financed campaign
had attracted 400,000 signatures. In markets and provincial fetes,
he appealed to the crowds: "Please sign to ensure that the law is
equal for all - even for the prime minister. Italians have a right
to know now, not later, if their premier is guilty of corruption."
Mr Di Pietro, a southern Italian, with poor, rural roots, has been
welcomed by the very housewives who helped to vote Mr Berlusconi
into power in 2001 but now respond to the senator.
In the early 1990s, when he was still a prosecutor,
Mr Di Pietro was the scourge of Italy's corrupt ruling class,
bringing many politicians to book.
Now his petition, which calls for a referendum next
June, taps into the growing grass-roots anger over Mr Berlusconi's
failure to keep election promises. Among the public there is
widespread unease over the government's use of parliament to spare
Mr Berlusconi - the subject of numerous investigations - from
prosecution while in office.
Nonetheless, many supporters of Mr Di Pietro fear
that referendum turnout may be too low for the result to be
valid.
His campaign has been ignored both by the mainstream
media, which is largely under the government's control, and the
Centre-Left opposition. The opposition fears it may lose face if the
referendum fails to win backing for a law change.
One Florence pensioner, Giuliano Cungi, speaks for
many when he declares: "I've signed, because I refuse to let [the
government] get away with it. But I'm afraid there may not be a
quorum. The government has almost complete control of television.
And the organisers have nothing."
However, they will fight on, says Luigi Sedita, 56, a
hospital director who is on the local Di Pietro Party committee.
"What distinguishes our movement, and also our petition, is that we
are all ordinary people. None of us are politicians.
"We are involved in this campaign because the
government is violating our constitution, which our fathers fought
and died for in the resistance.
"The article says that the law is equal for all. But
with this government, some have a better standing before the law
than others."
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