The reputation of Silvio Berlusconi’s government sank to a new low at the weekend when newspapers published photographs of members of his coalition casting multiple votes as the senate approved a law that critics say is intended to rescue the prime minister from a corruption trial in Milan.
The political row about the apparent cheating — those responsible are known as ”pianists” — has been intensified by the controversial nature of the law, which enables defendants to ask for their trail to be transferred if they feel a court is prejudiced against them.
Berlusconi’s lawyers have said they will avail themselves of the new ”legitimate suspicion” law to have his trial on charges of bribing Rome judges moved from Milan to Brescia. That would almost certainly make the alleged crime subject to the statute of limitations.
Thousands of people have demonstrated against the law in recent weeks, saying parliament has been hijacked into resolving the judicial problems of Berlusconi and his closest associates.
The alleged voting abuses were denounced on Friday by opposition senators, using video images allegedly showing 14 government supporters pressing the electronic voting buttons on their desks for themselves and an absent neighbour.
In many cases the double vote is clearly visible; in others the senator appears to resort the subterfuge of hiding his hand under a pile of newspapers.
Willer Bordon, the opposition senator who led the protest, said he suspected that the vote might have been invalidated by the lack of a quorum. He has passed on the photographic evidence to the senate speaker, inviting him to take disciplinary action.
The speaker, Marcello Pera, who is in the US, said he would examine the evidence on his return. He said it was acceptable for senators to vote for party colleagues provided they were present in the chamber.
It would be inappropriate, he added, to attempt to resolve the long-standing problem of parliamentary ”piano-playing” by adopting an electronic system based on members’ fingerprints.
”Senators, after all, continue to be gentlemen,” he said.
But the opposition representative Nando Dalla Chiesa said that some government supporters had voted in their absense by keeping their electronic buttons taped down with sellotape.
”This shows a desire to be above the law and above the rules”, he said. ”The spirit of the law [being debated] went hand in hand with the methods used to to approve it.” – Guardian Unlimited