Silvio Berlusconi on Monday night electrified the final stages of Italy’s general election with a pledge to abolish council tax and appoint women as ministers if returned to office.
The prime minister cunningly waited till the closing seconds of his final TV duel with Romano Prodi, leader of the opposition, to make his surprise populist tax pledge. Under the rules, Prodi was unable to respond, and powerless to demand how Berlusconi could possibly fund Italy’s local authorities in future.
The extraordinary move threw open the contest, even though the final opinion polls, held more than a week ago before an electoral ban took effect, showed the centre-left leading by 3,5 to 5%. Since then, Berlusconi and his allies have appeared to recover with repeated claims that the opposition would raise taxes on savings.
The closing shots of Tuesday’s debate showed an apparently furious and disgusted Prodi. They encapsulated a bad-tempered encounter in which the contempt each leader feels for the other was nakedly on view.
At one point, it dissolved into a heated three-way exchange between the politicians and the moderator, with Berlusconi claiming he had been insulted. When the journalist, Bruno Vespa, tried to silence the prime minister, he pointed at Prodi and barked: ”Act like a moderator, Vespa! Moderate him! Moderate him!” Yet three times Berlusconi ignored the questions put to him and talked at length about issues he wished to stress — without Vespa once calling him to order.
Polls taken after the first TV debate in mid-March suggested Prodi was the winner. The prime minister was nervous, fidgety and poured out a torrent of statistics. He also committed a notable gaffe when, asked about the low proportion of women in politics, he responded that they were unwilling to leave their husbands and children to enter Parliament. On this occasion, he reversed his position and tore a leaf from the book of the Spanish Prime Minister, José Luis RodrÃÂguez Zapatero, who appointed a Cabinet made up of 50/50 women and men.
In the next Berlusconi government, the media mogul declared, his deputy would be a woman. There would be eight women ministers, and 20 women junior ministers. That could help him bring out the female vote on Sunday and Monday. But the pledge he and his allies are clearly hoping will swing the election is council tax.
Looking straight into the camera in his closing address, Berlusconi accused the centre-left of planning to triple property taxes. ”For us the primary home is sacred,” he said. ”So we shall abolish council tax on primary homes. You understood properly. We shall abolish council tax on all primary homes — and therefore on yours.”
In 2005, council tax on primary homes brought in â,¬2,3-billion — almost a quarter of total local authority revenue. The leftwing mayor of Venice, Massimo Cacciari, said the pledge was a ”joke”.
He added: ”If [the government] transfers more resources to us, maybe by closing down the odd useless ministry, then fine. Otherwise, we shall have to close down the councils.” – Guardian Unlimited Â