Il Wall Street Journal su Berlusconi

In Italy, a Call to Shake Things Up
Berlusconi’s Rival
For Top Job Wants
To Upend Old Order
By GABRIEL KAHN and LUCA DI LEO
March 26, 2008; Page A6

ROME — Walter Veltroni paints a bleak picture of the country he aspires to lead. Italy is “ruled by special interests and plagued by a political system that is slow, muddled and incapable of deciding anything,” he says in an interview.

It isn’t clear yet whether Mr. Veltroni’s promise to shake up what he sees as the sorry state of Italian politics will help him win the post of prime minister. Mr. Veltroni, the 52-year-old former mayor of Rome, is the center-left Democratic Party’s challenger to Italian media mogul Silvio Berlusconi, who is seeking in Italy’s April 13-14 elections to return to power a third time.

Mr. Veltroni has been trying to reach voters by criss-crossing the country on an eco-friendly bus as he pledges to reverse years of political sclerosis here, by slashing the number of parties and the size of government. But his party trails Mr. Berlusconi’s center-right coalition in the polls, though polls show up to a third of voters remain undecided.
[Walter Veltroni]

Italy has nearly ground to a halt in many ways. The economy is expected to expand by 0.6% this year, making it a laggard even among its slow-growing European peers. The last government, led by center-left Prime Minister Romano Prodi, lasted barely 20 months before collapsing in January. It left a raft of unfinished business in its wake, including a thus-far unsuccessful plan to sell unprofitable state carrier Alitalia SpA, the completion of a high-speed rail link with France and plans to pry open sectors such as local utilities to more competition. Mr. Prodi’s fall has also tainted Mr. Veltroni, a long-time ally.

While Germany and France have also tried and failed to tackle problems such as unemployment and dwindling spending power, Italy’s situation is particularly dire. The country’s work force is aging faster than that of any other major economy in Europe, and years of sluggish growth and high deficits have crippled its ability to invest in its own future. Unlike Spain, for example, Italy can’t afford to dip into state coffers to launch infrastructure projects that will create jobs and spur growth.

Mr. Veltroni says he would like to break the paralysis in Italian politics by introducing something new: an end to the era of political compromise and backtracking that have run the country into the ground. For close to half a century, governments in Italy have been run by multiparty coalitions. Mr. Prodi’s government was supported by nine separate parties, ranging from Catholics to hard-core communists. These broad coalitions turned each policy decision into an endless negotiation as tiny parties bargained for more power.
[Bulleted List]

“If decision-making power is divided among 10,000 different special interests, clearly you’re not going to get anywhere,” says Mr. Veltroni. His Democratic Party, which he formed last year by fusing together the two largest center-left parties, has pledged to run alone. The idea of a government by a single party, he says, “is unheard of here. It’s a Copernican revolution for Italian politics.” Recently, however, Mr. Veltroni has decided to ally with one small party.

He is also trying to push what he sees as a common-sense approach to Italy’s most intractable problems — such as excessive red tape and high taxes. Whereas currently 60 separate permits are required to open an auto-repair shop, he says, he wants to make it possible to open a new business in a single day.

He proposes slashing public spending — currently 50.5% of gross domestic product — to fund a rollback of Italy’s tax burden, which is one of the highest in the 15-nation euro zone. He also wants to cut by nearly half the 945 members of Parliament.

Political-science professor Franco Pavoncello, dean of Rome’s John Cabot University, says Mr. Veltroni’s decision to break away from coalition governments and run alone “created a new way of doing politics.” However, Mr. Pavoncello is more skeptical of some of Mr. Veltroni’s other pledges, such as his plan to cut spending, noting that previous governments, including the one led by his ally Mr. Prodi, have tried and failed. It is also unclear whether Italians are really eager to part with the political status quo.
[Silvio Berlusconi]

Although Mr. Berlusconi, 71, is now making his fifth run for the prime minister’s post, he remains the country’s most popular politician. He is also proposing the same recipe for economic growth that he did when he was last elected in 2001: lower taxes and increased investment in infrastructure. Meanwhile, Mr. Berlusconi has lampooned the Prodi government’s crackdown on rampant tax evasion, claiming it was akin to a tax rise.

Mr. Veltroni says that Mr. Berlusconi appeals to many Italians who like the “idea that you can live without rules.” While that can appeal to individuals, “for society, it’s a disaster.” He also complains that Mr. Berlusconi’s media empire — which includes three of the country’s seven national TV stations — has propped up his opponent’s appeal. A Berlusconi campaign official declined to comment.

But many voters are also skeptical of Mr. Veltroni’s claim that he wants to make a break with the past.

Although he has published books on topics ranging from jazz to the Kennedy family, and has written a successful novel, he has been in politics for more than 30 years and served as deputy prime minister during Mr. Prodi’s first administration in the mid-1990s.