It's a bit more complicated. His government can be ousted by a vote of no-confidence by the Parliament, but his coalition holds a majority of seats, so no luck with that. And his coalition owns its existence to him, so they can't simply oust him (they could not survive without the support of his money and tv channels).What's confusing to me is why in a Parliamentary system of government he is permitted to go on? Unlike here in the US where it takes an overwhelming majority of the congress to boot out the President in Italy his party can give him the boot - correct?
Well, the charges are actually buying sex from a minor, which is a crime. She was above the age of consent, tho.Shit the man is accused of having sexual orgies with minors while on the job - what more will it take?
It's... complicated. Italians as a general rule are heavily involved in politics. A voter turnout under 80% is considered unsatisfactory here. Right now, there is a deep dissatisfaction with politics, but parties still enjoy a strong base, even if just from the us-vs-them mentality. The problem is one of leadership: you have either ideologically-strong "real" parties with an incredibly dull leadership (e.g. Democratic Party), or fast-and-loose "movements" with a charismatic leadership (Berlusconi's People of Freedom, but also Di Pietro's Italy of Values). At the moment, you have more or less 3 "coalitions": Right-wing, Centrist, Left-wing. None of them enjoy a majority of the country, and the Right-wing can govern due to the idiosyncrasies of the electoral law. On the other hand, an alliance between Centrists and Left-wingers is simply doomed to fail (they tried: didn't work and gave a big boost to Berlusconi).But his party is basically just a Berlusconi election club. Sadly, most parties in Italy seem to be in a sorry state, without a real base.
We are. Well, at least many of us (arguably, a majority, but that's complicated), and we have been demanding it for a long time. But thanks to a stupid electoral law, Berlusconi still enjoy the confidence of a majority in Parliament, and that's all that matters.Yea, yea, - were not Italy but I'm really shocked that the Italian public after this tirade at an economic summit for gods sake isn't demanding his immediate removal from office.
This is the point. His coalition only survives as long as he's in charge, and they are too keep on keeping their seats to put that in danger.Berlusconi's been doing shit like this for years. He's a teflon President(e del Consiglio). Right now is actually the weakest he's ever looked. Even then, his conservative coalition owes their success to him. It could very well be suicide to force him out and then lose the election.
It won't. It's been already swept under the rug by his media, if even mentioned at all. His power over information is almost unthinkable. After a big loss during some local elections, Berlusconi granted himself a 30 min address to the public on national and private tv channels to support his candidates at the run-off. It was deemed a violation of "equal time law" during political campaigns, and the tv were fined 2 million Euros, but they simply paid the fine.Maybe this will be the hair that breaks the camel's back, maybe it won't.
Trying to explain Italian politics gives me a headache.
