Last week Alessandra Mussolini went on hunger strike, albeit with regular sugared cappuccino breaks. This week she’s relented, seeing that no ground was made in her efforts to have her party recognised for upcoming regional elections in Lazio [and Milan, where she has also had her party Alternativa Sociale banned for the collection of false signatures to support their application].
You’d be forgiven for presuming that her first meal [lasagne and salad, for the curious] would signal an end to the affair. Ah, were it only that easy.
The centre-Left and centre-Right, like tweedledum and tweedledee, have become embroiled in bitter recriminations over the Mussolini affair.
The centre-Right, particularly in the form of Alleanza Nazionale, La Mussolini’s ex-party, have rubbed their hands in glee as it appears that the centre-Left were the ones who supplied il duce‘s grand-daughter with the false signatures [everybody still following?]. In short, under election regulations in Lazio, a quota of signatures verified by qualified persons such as elected officials is required before a party with no current representatives can present itself for election. La Mussolini’s list of verified signatures, the vast majority of which have been proven to be false*,it would seem, were verified by a number of politicians from the Left. Their motive? The innocent minded see a benevolent support of participatory democracy. The world weary, of whom in the ambit of Italian politics there are justifiably more, suggest a policy of ‘the enemy of my enemy’…
A fiendish plot to rob Alleanza Nazionale of some of its critical support in Lazio? Perhaps, but also tremendously stupid as it turns out, as many of the false signatures were easily spotted having birth dates such as the thirty-second of August etc. Perhaps the most feable defence, coming from the Green party who are not directly involved, was last night’s suggestion that the Left wing plot theory makes no sense, as it was bungled so badly. Had they wanted to do this sort of thing, the logic goes, they would have chosen convincing signatures.
The plot thickens though with the news that Laziomatica, an IT company in the employ of the Lazio Region [currently governed by Alleanza Nazionale] hacked into the databases containing citizens details, committing a violation of Italy’s stringent privacy laws. Mirko Maceri, the head of Laziomatica has taken the fall for this violation, resigning his position, but the suspicion does remain that there were political gains to be made by the Right from this illegal act.
The upshot of it all, apart from La Mussolini being respectively banned from the election and subsequently fed, is that a slagging match is going on, of little final consequence. Francesco Storace, the current governor of Lazio jeered his left wing opponent Piero Marrazzo, “Once you were anti-fascists…you’re anti-fascists by day, and by night you collect signatures for them”, only to get the reply “I’d be more careful about the things that happen at night in the region if I were you”, referring presumably to the hacker incident[1].
While the boys jeered each other, endlessly [Massimo D’Alema, leader of Democratici di Sinistra waded in by calling the whole affair “Watergate alla Carbonara”], the Judges dramatically stepped in, and have, at the time of writing (8.06pm) ruled that Mussolini has the requisite number of ‘real’ signatures. This seems particularly strange, considering that virtually everyone was agreed this morning that the vast majority were false. This ruling paves the way for Mussolini to contest the elections, but hardly clears up the murky atmosphere surrounding the affair.
The Green party, who are themselves currently fighting to have some opponents ruled out, are going on hunger strike until the whole process in Lazio is cleared up. They’d better stock up on the sugared cappuccini, as it seems like it’ll be a long and hungry wait…
*[according to TAR]
[1]”Laziomatica, indagato il direttore” – La Repubblica, Tues 22/03/2005