Berlusconi Denounces Italy Election As Fraudulent

Berlusconi denounces Italy election as fraudulent
By Giuseppe Fonte
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060412/...NlYwMlJVRPUCUl

ROME (Reuters) - Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Wednesday denounced what he called widespread fraud at Italy's general election and demanded his center-left rival Romano Prodi be stripped of victory.

Prodi immediately condemned Berlusconi's efforts to overturn the results of the April 9-10 election, the closest in modern Italian history, and his allies warned that the prime minister was stoking dangerous political tensions.
The stand-off between the leaders of Italy's two main coalitions pushed Europe's fourth largest economy into uncharted waters and toward a full-blown crisis.

"The election result has to change because there was widespread fraud," Berlusconi told reporters after meeting President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.

"There was fraud that doesn't go in all directions. It just goes one way," he added, suggesting that the alleged ballot box irregularities had all been at the expense of his alliance.

Prodi, attending a victory rally in his home city of Bologna in northern Italy, dismissed the allegation.

"We have won ... Berlusconi has to go," said Prodi, a former president of the European Commission. whose victory has been acknowledged by France, Spain, Luxembourg and the European Commission but not Washington.

According to Interior Ministry data, the center-left won the election for the lower house of parliament by just 25,000 votes out of 38.1 million ballots cast.

Berlusconi earlier this week demanded a review of 40,000 disputed ballots that were not included in the final tally because of alleged errors in the way they were filled out.

On Wednesday, he suggested the problem might be much bigger, saying statements from 60,000 voting stations across Italy had to be checked "one by one."

'POISON'

Checks on disputed ballots are routinely carried out by the authorities and these were expected to be completed by Friday.

The prime minister said he thought the review would take "several days" to complete.

Some of Berlusconi's allies applauded his move, but center-left leaders were unanimous in their condemnation.

"Berlusconi, stop poisoning Italy and delegitimising the Italians' vote," said Piero Fassino, head of the biggest leftist party, the Democrats of the Left.

A statement by center-left allies said: "Berlusconi must recognize the result of the polls and stop feeding this dangerous climate of tension."

The prime minister suggested on Tuesday that with Italy split down the middle by the vote, the center-left and centre-right should form a government of national unity to tackle the country's economic problems.



But the idea was dismissed out of hand by Prodi, who said on Wednesday he was already preparing to govern.

"It's not true that the country will be split forever. It is today, but we will put it back together again," he said.

Even without accusations of fraud, Italy faced at least a month of limbo before a new government can be sworn in.

Under the constitution, it is up to the head of state to nominate a new government after consultation with party leaders.

Prodi had wanted Ciampi to quickly name him prime minister but the president, whose term ends on May 18, believes it is the duty of his successor. The new parliament is due to convene on April 28. The Senate, lower house and regional representatives will then vote on May 12-13 to elect a successor to Ciampi.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Wednesday denounced what he called widespread fraud at Italy's general election and demanded his center-left rival Romano Prodi be stripped of victory.

No wonder him and Bush get along so well...

well that ought to teach him that he be sure and contact diebold for some electronic voting machines the next time he runs for election, then he won't have to worry about someone else winning....

I don't know why he's so upset. He has more time on his hands to call sex lines, harass females, be a full-fledged ginzo pervert....

Italians fear Florida repeat as Berlusconi digs in
The Times

Italy is facing the prospect of a protracted Florida-style electoral wrangle caused by Silvio Berlusconi's refusal to accept the results of this week's parliamentary elections.


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With official results giving his centre-left opponents a wafer-thin majority, Signor Berlusconi met President Ciampi for more than an hour last night to inform him of "innumerable irregularities" in the two-day election, which ended on Monday.

Citing government sources, major newspapers reported today that he had asked the President to sign a special decree ordering an unprecendented recount of 1.1 million spoiled votes, but Signor Ciampi refused.

Instead, Signor Berlusconi, who demanded that his opponent, Romano Prodi, be stripped of his victory, is considering using his power as caretaker Prime Minister to order a partial recount.

That move threw the country into full-blown political crisis and brougth comparisons with the 2000 US presidential election, when victory was handed to President Bush after a recount battle in Florida.

"At this point it is difficult not to fear a sort of Italian-style Florida. A long, destabilising confrontation over the regularity of more than one million votes," said the Milan daily Corriere della Sera newspaper in an editorial. "The only thing is that here one can’t see a final agreed conclusion."

Signor Berlusconi is the only prime minister to have served a full five-year term since democracy was restored to Italy after the death of Benito Mussolini and the country's defeat in the Second World War.

But after his meeting with Signor Ciampi, he gave no sign that he is willing to give up the office quite yet. "The result must, and will, change because there has been endless vote rigging in different places, all over Italy," he told reporters.

"Did you think you’d got rid of me," he added, with a smile.

Official Interior Ministry figures say that Signor Prodi's coalition won the contest for the lower house Chamber of Deputies by a mere 25,000 votes of the 38 million cast, although Italian election law guarantees the winner at least 55 per cent of seats in the chamber. It also enjoys a slender two-seat majority in the Senate.

The Berlusconi camp initially demanded a recount of 43,000 contested votes, then extended that demand to returns from all 60,000 polling stations, as well as more than one million spoilt ballot papers - 60 per cent fewer than the number of invalid votes cast in 2001.

Newspapers reported that the partial recount of contested ballot papers suggested that votes were being allocated to both blocs.

Corriere della Sera said that in one electoral college in the northern region Veneto, only four of 20 disputed ballot papers had been assigned to Signor Berlusconi’s Forza Italia after review. In Milan and Naples, the Left was winning back more votes than the right.

The Prime Minister has the backing of two of his House of Freedoms allies, the National Alliance and Northern League. The third, the Christian Democrat UDC, has maintained a dignified silence, although its leader, the outgoing parliamentary speak Pier Fernando Casini, said: "We can’t go on like this for the next two months."

The situation is complicated by the fact that Italy’s President, whose duty it is to swear in the new government, ends his seven-year term of office on May 18. Signor Ciampi, 85, has said he wants his successor to do the swearing-in, delaying the formation of a new government.

Among those calling for Signor Berlusconi to accept the result and step down from politics was Francesco Cossiga, a former Christian Democrat minister who served as president in the 1980s.

Signor Cossiga called on the Prime Minister to perform his "final service to the people and resign.. before he goes off to the Bahamas because now he is no longer anybody."