Arnold Cassola, the Maltese Green MP in the Italian parliament expects the Romani Prodi’s government to survive today’s vote in the Chamber of Deputies, where it enjoys a comfortable majority, only to lose power by next Sunday when Prodi faces another vote in the Senate.
“I expect Prodi to win the first vote since there are the necessary numbers, even without Clemente Mastella’s UDEUR (Unione dei Democratici Europei),” Cassola said, who was elected to the Italian lower house on a foreign list of Italian candidates.
But this vote will not be enough for Prodi to hold on to power, whose one-vote majority in the upper house, the Senate, has been forfeited with Mastella’s resignation. “Without Mastella’s three senators, the government should fall,” Cassola told MaltaToday.
Cassola will be voting for Prodi, as the beleaguered prime minister lost his majority with the resignation of Mastelle, his justice minister, an old-style Christian-democrat now facing corruption allegation.
But Cassola has not lost all hope that Prodi could survive for yet another day. “Seeing how Italian politics works, I would not be surprised at all if we have some last-minute surprise in the Senate.”
The government last year survived a similar vote in the Senate after the defection of Marco Follini, an opposition MP, to the government side.
The latest crisis erupted after Mastella resigned his post after a corruption probe involving his wife, himself and other party officials. Prosecutors are looking into allegations of a corrupt hospital appointment at a state hospital in Caserta near Naples. Mastella’s wife Sandra Lonardo, who leads the council in Italy’s Campania region, is accused of being involved in this scandal.
In his resignation speech, Mastella said: “between the love of my family and power I choose the former.”
Both Prodi and Opposition leader Silvio Berlusconi publicly defended Mastella despite the ongoing investigation. The only minister to distance himself from Mastella was Infrastructure Minister Antonio De Pietro, a former ‘mani pulite’ magistrate.
Mastella initially indicated he would still support Prodi’s government, the disparate Unione coalition grouping centrists, liberals, social democrats, greens and communists.
But on Monday he announced the withdrawal of his support, denying Prodi the UDEUR’s three seats in the Senate.
Cassola blames Walter Veltroni, leader of the biggest party in Prodi’s Unione coalition, the Partito Democratico, for the current crisis after pushing for electoral reforms which penalise small parties like the UDEUR. Last Sunday he declared that whichever electoral system gets chosen, the PD will be contesting the forthcoming elections.
“This effectively killed the spirit which kept the Unione coalition united,” Cassola said. “Veltroni is a totally irresponsible person. He is already behaving as always happens when you have a big party that believes it can decide everything for everybody: in the most arrogant of ways.”
Cassola added that Mastella, already in deep trouble with the magistrates, took advantage of Veltroni’s words to declare the Unione had ended and his group would no longer support Prodi.
Prodi’s downfall will not necessarily herald the dissolution of parliament and new elections. “If government falls Prodi will go to President who would then start consultations with both speakers and all parties on the situation,” explained Cassola.
There is widespread agreement among politicians – even among the prime minister’s divided opponents – that the country needs new electoral laws. Under the current system rushed in by former premier Silvio Berlusconi, smaller parties with a handful of seats hold the balance of power. Even Berlusconi, now leader of the opposition, would have great difficulty forming a stable majority to rule if he was to win an election especially after clashing with former ally Gianfranco Fini, leader of Alleanza Nazionale.
Analysts say it is much more likely that President Giorgio Napolitano will call an interim government of technocrats to force through such reforms.

jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt