Berlusconi sweeps back to power in Italy election

[rayofreason]

Source: Reuters

ROME (Reuters) - Silvio Berlusconi has won his third Italian election with a bigger than expected swing to the centre right, but the media magnate said it would not be easy to solve deep economic problems.

Votes were still being counted on Tuesday, but with Berlusconi's victory clear on Monday evening, centre-left leader Walter Veltroni called the 71-year-old to concede defeat.

After two years in opposition, Berlusconi is expected to return to Rome from his home in northern Italy later on Tuesday, although for procedural reasons he is unlikely to be appointed prime minister before early May.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080414/ts_nm/italy_election_dc

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Italian governments come and go, but buried in this story is the real news - the communists are gone. Zilch, nada, not a single seat. Good riddance. Maybe some of them will have to actually go and join the working class! Communist parties have never been a friend to liberty, and our great forefather democrats FDR, Harry Truman, and JFK all knew this well. The Italian communists even ate their own (a common enough practice). Read the following admission by current party leaders and see who denies that the founding leadership was anything but a bunch of Stalinist scumbags.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/europe/italian-communists-sent-comrades-to-die-in-the-gulag-444580.html

[OwnedByFerrets]

1. Can you say Stolen Election?? I knew you could...nt

[rayofreason]

2. Got a link to evidence of election fraud?

I haven't seen any. And I don't think that the Italians use Diebold machines.

If you have a link to a source, I'd love to see it.

[arcos]

3. Sadly, no stolen election...

You know, the left actually loses fairly sometimes, the truth is Romano Prodi's government was really unpopular.

[zeos3]

6. "the left actually loses fairly sometimes?"

I'm not disagreeing with the statement itself, just regarding this particular story. I only know what I read in the link, but two things bother me: 1)Berlusconi is an ally of GWB(ugh); 2)How many outlets does this "media magnate" control?

[arcos]

9. He's the biggest media mogul in Italy...

However, he has lost and won elections before.

Also, the left wing coalition tried to avoid early elections because it was pretty clear they were going to lose after an unpopular administration.

His win wasn't really a surprise, it was actually quite expected both in Italy and abroad.

[ShockediSay]

17. Was Italy the birthplace of fascism?

Government controlling and supported by MSM and Major Corporate interests

[cyclezealot]

12. People just get fed up with politic ans, since humans

can't seem to find miracle workers. Capitalist economics fail us daily all about the world. Left/ right can't correct our faltering economies. So who ever in power gets blamed / As to Bersclemoni sp? / it is hard to believe the world could find a bigger , more repugnant figure than George Bush, but I suspect the Italians just did.

[cyclezealot]

11. Italian elections a mystery

Subterranean forces makes things seem what they are not. Yes, the people were duped. ?Review of why Prodi fell from power.

***Dante disliked his contemporary Pope Boniface VIII so much that he put him in the Eighth Circle of Inferno among the "simoniacs," the abusers of church power--sinners who were buried head-down, feet on fire, next to the pimps and the fraudsters. When Italy's long-tottering center-left government finally fell in late January with Silvio Berlusconi rubbing his hands in the wings, the Eighth Circle seemed to sum up Italy's predicament.

The government's downfall began with Justice Minister Clemente Mastella, leader of a tiny Christian Democratic faction that got just 1.4 percent of the vote in the 2006 elections. Mastella resigned after he learned that he and his wife, a regional politician, were under judicial investigation, then abruptly announced he would oppose the government. Without Mastella's three seats in the Senate, Prime Minister Romano Prodi's government was doomed. In his twenty-month tenure, Prodi had learned to live with a one-vote margin in the upper house--but every vote had been a cliffhanger


http://www.thenation.com/docprem.mhtml?i=20080303&s=randall

[cyclezealot]

13. a better link I hope

Letter from Rome. by Frederika Randall printed in the Nation.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080303/randall

[New Dawn]

7. Well, it definitely was not a fair election.

Considering that Bush-puppet Berluscummy owns 80% of the Italian media.

However, US corporate media will never mention this. According to US corporate media, elections are always "free and fair" when the right-wing party wins.

[Freddie Stubbs]

18. Did the "US corporate media" call into question the 2006 Italian elections when Berlusconi lost?

:shrug:

[LeftishBrit]

16. Berlusconi doesn't need to steal elections

He can manipulate the Italian media, which he essentially owns, so that public opinion goes his way.

Also the last government was mediocre and unpopular (though that's no reason for electing a RW crook like Berlusconi).

[Freddie Stubbs]

22. What evidence is there that is was stolen?

:shrug:

[Eurobabe]

4. So we aren't the only stupid ones on the planet n/t

[arcos]

5. Sen. McCarthy's ghost? Is that you? nt

[cyclezealot]

23. to me he looks and talks more like a hybrid of

Sen. Joe McCarthy and Mussolini. I think I like Bush and Sarkozy better.

[MissHoneychurch]

8. We can only hope

the Italians get tired of him soon again and then get rid of him - again. I really don't understand how they could vote for that man for a third time. We now can look forward to a lot of "fun" in the next months ... :scared:

[many a good man]

10. Berlusconis pushed out communists here long time ago

[OKthatsIT]

14. Italy better watch their food policies(WTO) and water supply

Globalists everywhere are pushing through more toxins and aerosol spraying.

[gasperc]

15. as an Italian, this sucks!!!!!

Damn it

[rayofreason]

19. Don't worry...

...The wheel always turns. Count on your political opponents to make mistakes and eventually piss people off - they always do. In the meantime, the best thing is to hold on to principle and empirical evidence in favor of your policies.

[Flagg]

20. What's with the Italian communist bashing ?

There are still communists in France and they fight for worker's rights. It's the same in Italy. They're not Stalinists.

Do you know that Berlusconi will form a coalition with the Northern League party, which until some years ago, was an openly fascist party ?

[fascisthunter]

21. But You Seem Ok with Fascists...

on DemocraticUnderground. Priceless....