Italy: the last ruse?
“Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”
– from Boswell’s Life of Dr. Samuel Johnson
Looking for loopholes …
Every now and then comes a move so brazen, so crass, so audacious, so spectacularly cynical, that one can but mockingly applaud — as long as it is happening somewhere else.
“Do you think I could do anything underhanded?“
Such a coup de theatre, a dazzling conjuration of political vaporware for the political capital of the shortest term imaginable, was uncorked a few days ago by charming mountebank Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Facing an imminent election, trailing in the polls, indicted for bribery and in jeopardy of being imprisoned once he loses his self-conferred prime ministerial immunity, Signore Berlusconi waited until the very end of a live televised debate with his challenger, Romano Prodi, and blatantly pandered to the electorate’s id:
Looking straight into the camera in his closing address, Mr Berlusconi accused the centre-left of planning to triple property taxes. “For us the primary home is sacred,” he said. “So we shall abolish council tax on primary homes. You understood properly. We shall abolish council tax on all primary homes - and therefore on yours.”
“Romano, my friend, I know something you don’t know.”
As we’ve seen in previous posts, throughout the developed world, property taxes (called council taxes in
In 2005, council tax on primary homes brought in €2.3bn, or £1.6bn - almost a quarter of total local authority revenue.
“You can’t see the flaws in my argument!”
Because they are directly collected, property taxes are among the voters’ most sensitive topics, so this shot hit home:
The extraordinary move threw open the contest, even though the final opinion polls, held more than a week ago before an electoral ban took effect, showed the centre-left leading by 3.5 to 5 percentage points. Since then, Mr Berlusconi and his allies have appeared to recover with repeated claims that the opposition would raise taxes on savings.
The leftwing mayor of Venice, Massimo Cacciari, said the pledge was a “joke”.
This claim of
“You Venetians are no strangers to masquerade.”
Consider the dice throw from his point of view:
- If he loses, then the pledge cost him nothing.
- If he wins, then
- If he cancels his pledge, he has still been re-elected.
- If he fulfills his pledge, it comes out of the hide of those who opposed him anyway.
- If he seeks to fulfill his pledge but is blocked by his opponent, he recoups his political capital and can use it again.
Heads, I win!
Signore Berlusconi has painted his opponents as the tax-and-spend party, and he got the last word:
The prime minister cunningly waited till the closing seconds of his final TV duel with Romano Prodi, leader of the opposition, to make his surprise populist tax pledge. Under the rules, Mr Prodi was unable to respond, and powerless to demand how Mr Berlusconi could possibly fund
“Not out of my personal $12 billion fortune!”
All for the low, low price of political irresponsibility, charlatanism, and a cavalier contempt for the voters:
The closing shots of last night’s debate showed an apparently furious and disgusted Mr Prodi.
Over the weekend, Signore Berlusconi has suggested the UN be called in to monitor the vote:
Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
The polls will close tonight (Monday). Will Signore Berlusconi suffer the same fate as his evident role model Punchinello?
Tiepolo, The Burial of Punchinello
Tune in tonight to Italian television and find out!
UPDATE (11-Apr): Signore Berlusconi’s gambit worked — his party has closed the gap to the point where the election is too close to call, and probably heading for a recount. And regardless of who wins, the margin will be so narrow that his pledge to eliminate council tax will be an unenactable dead letter.
