Italy Politics

Police stormed the bell tower in St. Mark's Square on Friday and arrested eight separatists who occupied it in an armed protest that put concern about secession back on Italy's political agenda. A team of 24 masked paramilitary police commandos ended the protest about five hours after the group of young men, some dressed in combat fatigues, broke into one of Venice's best-known landmarks.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government will resign if a controversial decree limiting powers of arrest in corruption cases is kicked out by Italy's Parliament, the government spokesman said Friday. The remarks on live television by spokesman Giuliano Ferrara upped the stakes in a battle of wills that has pitted Berlusconi against Italy's graft-busting magistrates, some of his own coalition partners and a large slice of public opinion.

Treasury Minister Giuliano Amato set to work Friday to put together a new government, after the ruling center-left coalition pledged to support his bid to be Italy's next premier. President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi gave Amato--the Socialist premier in 1992-93--the go-ahead after majority leaders insisted their support was solid. If the politically independent Amato succeeds in forming Italy's 58th government since World War II, he must put the new coalition to a vote of confidence in Parliament.

The decision by the sagging Italian Communist Party to change its name has triggered a donnybrook for control of the large and potentially dominant political left in a country where successful capitalism has long been a comfortable bedfellow of forces that nominally oppose it. After a noisy and divisive 11-month gestation, the Communists now proclaim their party, the largest in the West, to be the Partito Democratico della Sinistra-- the Democratic Party of the Left .

Italian Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema resigned Saturday night after contending that he has enough parliamentary support to put together a new, stronger government. President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi asked D'Alema to stay on in a caretaker role while consultations are held to find a political consensus to forge a new coalition.

Italians on Tuesday observed a historic landmark in the making of their tumultuous young democracy--and a surprising electoral stalemate along its rocky path toward change. Ceremonies in major cities paid 50th anniversary homage to patriots who died to free their country of fascist dictatorship and Nazi occupation at the end of World War II. When the war ended, Italy was a bombed-out, bankrupt, dispirited monarchy.

In the multihued and endlessly convoluted universe of Italian politics, it is Umberto Bossi's self-assigned role to proclaim that the emperor has no clothes. Controversy naturally follows: Bossi is hailed as a visionary, and he is denounced as a demagogue. Political rebellion is brewing in the rich and sophisticated Italian north, and Bossi is at its core.

Far-right leader Gianfranco Fini, whose party is poised to share power in Italy's next government, hailed fascist dictator Benito Mussolini as "the greatest statesman of the century." Fini's remarks were in sharp contrast to his attempts during the campaign to play down his party's fascist past. The interview with La Stampa newspaper was published as Fini's partners in the "Freedom Alliance" met to discuss the formation of a new government.

Significant scores by German and Italian extremist parties in elections this weekend continued a Europe-wide trend of electoral gains by anti-immigrant, populist and ultra-right parties that began last fall.

Italy swore in its 58th postwar government Wednesday with a new prime minister but the same bickering center-left parties. Ominously for the future of his eight-party coalition, Prime Minister Giuliano Amato--a 61-year-old known as "Dr. Subtle" for his political finesse--proved unable to quell squabbling over Cabinet posts even long enough for the oath-taking.