In the following months Berlusconi will have to face many obstacles, starting from the Alfano bill, should the constitutional court rule that it is unconstitutional, then Berlusconi will be obliged to stand trial for allegedly bribing Mills, who has already been sentenced. A crime which has also been committed, according to judges, by the Prime Minister, who is innocent until a court opens a new trial.

Berlusconi obviously wants to prevent it. For this reason the Avvocatura dello Stato (the Italian office that defends on a legal plan public administrations) deposited a memorandum for the defence in view of the constitutional court’s decision about the Alfano bill, which grants immunity from prosecution for the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, and the Presidents of the upper and lower Chamber. But the Alfano bill is just one of Berlusconi’s problems. In the following months the Prosecutor’s offices in Caltanissetta and Florence will evaluate the depositions of the Mafiosi turned informants on the massacres of 1992. Investigations are being held on episodes that concern Forza Italia, the party founded by Berlusconi. Another boulder in the governments way is the chasm with the President of the lower Chamber, which cannot be dealt with easily.

Then there is the regional election in which Berlusconi has to win in at least four regions. A large part of the Church, and also the catholic voters, could had been influenced in a negative way by the conflict between Berlusconi newspaper, Il Giornale, and the Cei newspaper, L’Avvenire, on the Boffo case. Finally in the background there is the escort-gate, the parties at the Prime Minister’s office and his girlfriends, which have been reported in hundreds of articles on the Italian and international press.

Translated by Chiara Nunnari from John Milton Institute