Articles by: Judith Harris

ROME -


Right and left in Italy occasionally agree, at least on the problem. "The house is on fire," thundered Angelino Alfano, titular secretary of the rightist Freedom Party (PdL), whose real leader is former Premier Silvio Berlusconi. "Italy is starting to be frightened - yes, frightened," intoned the moderate leftist Ernesto Galli della Loggia, writing in Corriere della Sera. Both lament the politicians' failure to move toward formation of a new government, consequent to the impasse wrought by the three-way split in national general elections of five weeks ago. But there agreements end, and the impasse over what to do continues, despite the risk of a power vacuum that could open the way to dangerous speculation. To gain time, President Giorgio Napolitano, approaching the end of his seven- year mandate, has tried another tack, by appointing a 10-man committee of "sages" to work this week in a last, desperate attempt to excogitate points of convergence on reforms that could - at least in theory - constitute a platform for a new government.



The stalemate was brought about by the tri-party split pitting PdL, the left- leaning Partito Democratico (PD) and Beppe Grillo's aggressive 5-Star Movement (M5S) against each other. So far the first and only attempt to form a government was a soft mandate President Napolitano gave Pier Luigi Bersani, head of the PD. But after a week of futile talks Bersani had to throw in the towel on Easter eve. His frustration was visible, to the point that he said that he would, if it would benefit the nation, stand aside.



Even more than the truculent Beppe Grillo, who refuses to cooperate with anyone, just now PdL maneuvers therefore occupy center stage. Berlusconi's people have placed an ultimatum. Either new elections are to be held now, though only if Napolitano would resign (he has declined; and in fact, elections cannot take place within the final six months of a presidential term, as this is now), or a broad coalition government is to be voted into office. The idea is that it would be headed by their leftist rivals the PD, in a swap for the PdL's choosing a president of Italy to succeed Napolitano when a joint session of parliament convenes April 14. To this offer, however, Bersani replied Tuesday in a single word: "Unacceptable." Bersani finds himself in a Catch-22 situation, for as knows, his party backers would desert the PD for Beppe Grillo if he accepted to govern in coalition with Berlusconi. As for calling new elections, this is "a disastrous hypothesis."



Ezio Mauro, who is editor-in-chief of the daily La Repubblica, is convinced that behind PdL strategy is a single focus: guaranteeing immunity from further prosecution for Berlusconi himself. Berlusconi himself, says Mauro, oscillates between appearing the statesman, as he did after leaving the Quirinal Palace and his talks with President Napolitano, and playing to the more radical mass of his piazza supporters on the right. The problem here, according to Berlusconi's supporters, is that this leaves Parliament frozen. "It's Napolitano's coup d'etat," according rightist editor Alessandro Sallusti of Il Giornale, a newspaper that belongs to Berlusconi's brother. "The constitution has been shredded" by the President's appointing the committee of "sages."



Chiming in, needless to say, is Beppe Grillo, whose blog says that the country needs a functioning Parliament rather than "phantom negotiators" or "babysitters for democracy" (i.e., the so-called sages). According to the most recent surveys, however, Grillo has lost a slice of his consensus, largely because of his centralization over control of his movement. This would hardly be surprising; it is, after all, by definition anarchic as a movement. At the same time Bersani has dropped in public opinion polls by about 2%, leaving Berlusconi's PdL the beneficiary. Why are we not surprised?



Mario Monti, in the meantime, continues to head the emergency government that held the Italian economy together for 13 months or so, until the new national general elections in late February ratified his weakness as a political figure, and generated the present stalemate, which coincides with unemployment approaching 12% and a 36% for youth.

VATICAN CITY - At 7:10 pm on Wednesday as rain continued to pour down, the shell-shaped square facing St. Peter's Basilica was again jammed with the faithful huddled under umbrellas in the darkness to await the day's second and final smoke signal.


We expected black smoke, marking the conclusion of the second day of the Conclave and the conclusion of five ballots - one yesterday afternoon, the other four today. Instead the smoke was white. The crowd literally surged forward with excitement, sweeping me along to 30 or so yards from the Basilica. As bells rang joyfully, Italian and American flags were waved, and cell phone photo flashes looked like fireflies. A group of Italians began singing the national anthem, Fratelli d'Italia.


One hour later came the announcement: the new pontiff is the archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 76, the son of Italian immigrants to Argentina. He is considered a traditionalist in theology but a modest, honest man who has been cooking his own meals as cardinal, and has taken the bus to work, at least until now. He is the first Jesuit pope in history and has elected a name which evokes St. Francis of Assisi, Francis I. He studied in Germany, and is considered on the reform side of the church on social justice, if not on such other contemporary issues such as gay marriage and abortion. "An imaginative, inspired choice," many veteran commentators like Robert Mickens of the British Catholic magazine The Tablet were saying. One reason is that he is expected to address the issue of governance, which in clerical-speak today for addressing the problems of the scandal-ridden Vatican bank, the IOR, and of child abuse.


Waving to a crowd estimated at 150,000, he appeared shy but also engaging and warm - a pastor rather than a professor. His modest life style reflects the fact that he is a man who has lived in the Church of poverty rather than in the relatively more wealthy Europe. To have a South American pope is important to the Church, for this is one of the regions in the world where the Church is growing rapidly despite challenges from evangelical Protestants. He has diplomatic experience and is also known as a supporter of the Communion and Liberation movement.


Prior to this, like the nasty March wind, gossip had whipped around Rome. No one could legitimately claim to be in the know, but this did not put an end to it. Reports from deep within the Conclave spoke of a tense atmosphere - but then, how was the reporter to know this? Today's scuttlebutt was that the (supposedly) front-running Italian candidate, Cardinal Angelo Scola of Milan, was suddenly being opposed on grounds that he has allegedly been too closely involved with a regional political leader, who is deeply enmeshed in scandal. This presumably paved the way for an alternative from the New World: Brazil, Argentina, Canada and, last and probably least likely, the U.S.


I happen to have been on hand in Rome for the elections of four pontiffs, but this election is different. As the veteran Italian Vaticanist Massimo Franco has pointed out, at this point no one believes that Pope Benedict XVI resigned solely on grounds of ill health. True, his left eye is giving him severe trouble, and persistent rumors circulate that he has Parkinson's, but it is also known that, as a gifted theologian and spiritual man, Benedict did not enjoy trying to rein those running the Curia, as the Church government is known.


"Governance" is the key word here, referring to everything from transparency in banking (read: eliminate the possibility for money laundering) to openness with the media and the congregations (read: no cover-ups for abuse). The Curia is considered conservative and inbred; the outsiders, and especially the non-Italian cardinals, are considered to have a larger number of reformers. These are relatively new problems, though some were certainly swept under the carpet during the past two papacies.


In another way this Conclave has differed. When a pontiff falls ill, the machinery begins to work, including the initial contacts for a possible successor; Cardinal Ratzinger was considered by insiders a shoo-in. But at least the timing of his resignation as pope came so unexpectedly that it threw a wrench into the works, as does the former pope's continuing to live within Vatican walls. This is all unexplored territory for the Church, and also an opportunity for renewal.


In St. Peter's Square this evening, I found, besides the tourists, priests, nuns and Romans, over 6,000 accredited press (mostly TV). Most are already tired from working from 8 am till midnight daily, and a veteran American reporter said, obviously in irony, "If they elect an American, I quit. I'm already too tired."

ROME - As every high schooler knows, in the calendar of ancient Rome the Ides of March fall on the 15th of that month, and are remembered as the day when the tyrannical Julius Caesar was stabbed to death in the Senate by Brutus, on behalf of a group of conspirators known as the "Liberators." Coincidentally Italy's newly elected senators and members of parliament are to take their seats only blocks away from where the Senate was meeting in Caesar's time, and on that same day. The inspirational leader of the largest single political party about to be seated - 109 members of the Chamber of Deputies (25.5%) and 50 Senators (23% ) - is Beppe Grillo.

In his own way Grillo is a sort of Brutus, whose weapon is rhetoric in an assault on the system which he would liberate from itself. The support for Grillo's Movimento 5 Stelle (5-Star Movement, or M5S) comes from the plebe - the people - and continues to rise; only weeks after the shock of his election triumph, his popularity has already surged another 3% in the polls, according to sociologist Renato Mannheimer and to a second respected polling organization, IPSOS, climbing to at least 29%. Support for Pierluigi Bersani's Partito Democratico (PD) has also surged, but by only 1%, to 27%.

Ironically, Grillo is both invisible and everywhere visible at the same time. While shunning all TV talk-show appearances, he is ever shown on TV news broadcasts, and never more so than making his October swim across the Straits to Sicily. In propaganda terms, political scientist and linguistics analyst Prof. Ferdinando Longobardi of the University of Basilicata compares Grillo's slicing through the waves to bare-chested Mussolini harvesting grain in the Twenties and to Mao Tse Tung's Yangtze River swim in 1966. "Like his body language, his rhetoric is part of Grillo's success. Language itself is politics, and both Silvio Berlusconi and Grillo strike a chord when they speak of hope," says Prof. Longobardi, speaking at a conference at American University of Rome on Friday. "People sort out the hyperbole from his real intentions."

Elsewhere too Grillo is both visible and invisible. Many observers assume he burst onto the political scene straight from the stage of the commedia dell'arte, and see his fans as participants in a Mardi Gra festival. However, as Prof. Longobardi points out, in the late 1980s Grillo was already a political activist, attacking the Socialist party of Bettino Craxi for alleged corruption and then an early environmental activist. Political scientist Gianfranco Pasquino is another who sees Grillo's serous side. "To write him off as a clown, as did the Economist magazine, is to misunderstand. Grillo is a political entrepreneur with a definite political constituency. He makes good points, and his is a legitimate protest because the political class has remained the same for too long. The country needs a systemic change and to send the old politicians home."

The massive new presence March 15 of Grillo's MPs and senators raises the question of just where they will be seated, in a Parliament hemicycle of seats running literally from left to right as a reflection of political positions. Right? left? center? No one knows. And how will they behave in that formal atmosphere where all men must wear coats and ties? Most but not all are young; the median age is 32 in the Chamber and 46 in the Senate. One out of three is a woman; among them two is a dynamic nurse whose son was also elected. For these 163, all is new; not one has previous experience in national politics simply because, when the last political elections were held in 2008, the M5S did not exist.

Many have university degrees and speak more than one language. "They're bright, educated and often unemployed or underemployed," says James Bone, London Times correspondent. Alas, not all are bright; on the popular TV program "Ballaro'", neo-deputy Paolo Bernini, 25, announced that the U.S. is tucking microchips into its citizens "so as to control the population....These things are coming into the open thanks to the Internet."

Richard Hodges, president of American University of Rome, recounts that when he visited Comacchio four years ago, he found a sleepy fishing town on a lagoon near Ravenna and Ferrara that has lived on tourism since its sugar refinery was shut down in 1988. Returning there this year, he found that 53,000 new housing units had been built, but that the movers and shakers behind that burst of building had been kicked out of office and replaced by Grillini (as Grilli's followers are sometimes dismissively called; Grillo means "cricket" and so these are little crickets). The mayor and all but one of the M5S town councilmen now running the show are 30 years old or younger. "None has met Grillo, nor does this disturb them." What motivates them, they told Hodges, is solely a desire to improve their local situation. Grillo is their means to an end.

Neither Grillo himself nor his political manager and Internet guru, Gianroberto Casaleggio, sometimes described as his "shaman," will be present when the Grillini take their seats in Parliament. The master of politics cannot become a member of Parliament because of a long-ago conviction for responsibility in an auto accident that left three dead ("I'm a delinquent"). Grillo will work behind the scenes, and his movement will not move on without him. But what this will mean, how the Grillini will perform when they face responsibility, is yet to be seen.

ROME.

 "Send in the Clowns," urges the March 2 London weekly, the Economist, with cover photos of two Italians. One is a shaggy, shouting comedian-turned politician wearing a casual jacket; the other, a grinning media mogul-turned politician dressed in impeccably double-breasted navy blue. The headline: "How Beppe Grillo and Silvio Berlusconi threaten the future of Italy and the euro." The charge: "Confronted by the worst recession in their country since the 1930s and the possible implosion of Europe's single currency, the people of Italy have decided to avoid reality."



Some here (and not all by any means) have failed to grasp reality because reality is as complex as is explaining Italy to outsiders. A New York Times op-ed piece this week asked why former premier Berlusconi still appeals to voters, and gave the standard reasons: the soccer team, the life style, the jokes, l'uomo forte (the strong man). All true yesterday, but not today. When Silvio Berlusconi says that the spread does not matter, the uninformed believe him because they do not know a financial spread from a bedspread. What they do understand is the economic pinch, and the cost to their families of the austerity package Monti had to apply to keep the country from bankruptcy. Italy was thus caught in a Catch-22 situation, but many of those voting for Berlusconi believe he can help them to thrive again, now.



The circus metaphor came about because President Giorgio Napolitano, in Germany for meetings, learned that Peer Steinbrueck, former finance minister and political rival to Angela Merkel, remarked that he was "appalled that two clowns have won the Italian elections." The reference was plainly to Grillo and to Berlusconi, whose parties came in respectively first and third in last week's national general elections. Saying that this remark showed disrespect for Italy, Napolitano abruptly cancelled a dinner with Steinbrueck, and rightly so; in his role as president he must ever and always appear impartial, whatever his personal opinion. Later Steinbrueck phoned Napolitano, apparently to apologize.



While it may seem like a circus, at any rate, there is little to laugh about. Latest on the GDP (here called the PIL) has it sinking below 2% over the past year. A government that can handle the economic crisis, and the social crisis implicit in it, is necessary, but which government? Commentators here agree that no predictions can be made because "the situation is far too fluid." For one thing, the new Parliament to be seated in two weeks time will be drastically different from the seated Parliament of today, and no one can predict its behavior. Tuesday's definitive election results confirmed a four- way split among the leading parties, with Grillo's Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S) the strongest single party followed closely by Pier Luigi Bersani's Partito Democratico (PD) and, just behind, Silvio Berlusconi's Freedom party (PdL). Trailing far behind is outgoing emergency premier Mario Monti's ticket.



Because Bersani's coalition had more votes, his formation will be the largest in Parliament and, by a hair, also in the Senate. But as he himself has admitted, they may have won, but it was no victory. Indeed, the trouble is that no one else has actually won. Up-to-date surveys show that the huge turnout for Grillo came primarily from Bersani's ranks. Many were alienated because they see the PD represented by Bersani, Rosi Bindi and Massimo D'Alema as past its shelf life. The party appeared dynamic when it held primary elections three months ago, with the clever and attractive youthful Florentine mayor Matteo Renzi captivating many. When Renzi was shuttled aside, many voters - and not only the young - turned against the PD.



The result: today's PD is splintered, each faction proposing a different solution for a new government. Some are crying for Bersani to resign; others, for him to tough it out and hope that Napolitano will appoint him to try to put together a minority government. Others in the PD urge a broad coalition to form a new government, but disagree over potential partners. With everyone, in a broad coalition across the board? With Monti, whose interests tend to the right, to business and the Church? With Grillo, who is on record calling Bersani the walking "dead" and worse?



Berlusconi's solution to the crisis is to propose a right-left catch-all government, which his opponents dub an "inciuccio," or everybody suckling at the sow. Berlusconi is also calling for a piazza demonstration against the magistracy in late March. "A certain party of the judiciary wants to eliminate me," he said Thursday.



As for Grillo, he is aching to have new elections called so that his M5S can pick up more alienated voters. He refuses Bersani's timid advances, responding with vulgar insults and announcing that he himself will be premier. Fortunately, no new elections can be called immediately: by law the president cannot dissolve Parliament during the final six months of his seven-year mandate. If there are to be new elections, they will be called only after Parliament is dissolved, and hence only after a new president is seated mid-May. Who is to succeed Napolitano is vitally important, but no one can guess who he or she will be - indeed, so important that some are seeking, so far without success, a way to postpone Napolitano's departure.



And meantime Grillo is not without his own problems. A faction of his supporters are urging him to be responsible and work for a solution to Italy's problems; others are happy for him to go on protesting against corruption, a wicked and inept bureaucracy, financial cronyism and the destruction of the environment. Grillo has categorically forbidden his lieutenants to speak in public - only he can speak - but this totalitarian self-aggrandizement just may boomerang against him.