Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi suffered a trouncing in referendums on Monday that wiped out his plans to return Italy to nuclear power and on a law designed to keep him out of court.
The results, following hard on disastrous local election results, have already provoked a growing unease from his supporters.
Final results showed crushing votes of more than 90 percent against the government in the four referendum questions on nuclear power, a law to give Berlusconi legal immunity and two on water privatization.
Photo: Reuters
Official figures released early yesterday by the Italian Interior Ministry do not yet include votes cast by Italians living abroad.
However, more than 94 percent of voters slammed the government’s plans for brand new nuclear power stations, which had been one of Berlusconi’s flagship policies.
About 95 percent voted to strip Berlusconi of special privileges accorded him as prime minister that exempted him from court appearances.
Berlusconi himself did not vote and the government had encouraged its supporters to stay away, but official data showed that nearly 56 percent of voters had turned out to have their say.
Acknowledging this late on Monday, Berlusconi said: “The high turnout in the referendums shows a will on the part of citizens to participate in decisions about our future that cannot be ignored.”
The level of turnout was crucial because without the participation of more than 50 percent of voters, the referendums would have had no legal force.
The vote against Berlusconi’s plans to resume a nuclear program reflects popular unease about nuclear energy in Europe after the Fukushima Dai-ichi nulcear power plant disaster in Japan.
The rejection of the partial immunity law suggested voter’s growing disenchantment with the 74-year-old prime minister’s legal woes.
Berlusconi is a defendant in three ongoing trials involving allegations of bribery, fraud, abuse of power and paying for sex with a 17-year-old girl.
As the scale of the defeat became clear, the ruling party moved quickly to limit the damage.
Party spokesman Daniele Capezzone told critics not to read too much into the results.
They should not see “a meaning or a political effect,” he said.
Italian Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa said there would be “no effect on government policy.”
However, the referendum defeats represent as a second hammer blow to the embattled prime minister in less than a month, after his People of Freedom Party lost critical mayoral votes in Milan and Naples last month, and now even his allies and supporters are expressing their discontent.
Roberto Calderoli, a senior figure in the Northern League Party, Berlusconi’s junior coalition partner, fired one warning shot.
“We got a slap in the face in the elections two weeks ago,” Calderoli said. “Now at the referendums we’ve had another slap. I don’t want getting slapped in the face to become a habit.”
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