Secessionist kingmakers

A few weeks ago, it would have been difficult to imagine a European political scenario more anomalous than the Italian one: a 74-year-old buffoonish billionaire blithely remaining in power despite a crippled economy, electoral defeats, and criminal charges of corruption and sex with an under-aged prostitute.

But with recent political blows to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's People of Freedom party, Italian politics have gotten even stranger, with the future of Berlusconi now dependent on pleasing his small, secessionist and anti-immigration Northern League coalition partner.

Trouble for Berlusconi began last summer when former Fascist Gianfranco Fini, a long-time key Berlusconi ally, defected from the center-right coalition with a handful of other center-right members. Then last month, Berlusconi's People of Freedom party experienced stinging defeats in local elections across the country, losing mayoral races in major cities such as Milan, Torino, Bologna and Naples. The latest resounding defeat came with the June 12 referendums against four government plans, which catalyzed enough opposition to reach a quorum - the first time since 1995.

The Northern League makes its demands

The Northern League is led by the combative but weak (after a debilitating stroke in 2004) Umberto Bossi. At the party's annual rally last weekend in the northern town of Pontida, Bossi addressed hundreds of supporters dressed in leprechaun green.

"Dear Berlusconi," Bossi barked into the microphone, "your leadership is at risk in the next elections if you don't make some changes."

Bossi told Berlusconi to decentralize government, move some ministries to the north, end Italy's role in the NATO attacks against Libya and cut taxes if he wants to last until election time in 2013.

Tax cuts are, however, extremely unlikely. This week Moody's put Italy on warning over concerns about its capacity to initiate growth and reduce public debt, which, at around 120 percent of GDP, is one of the highest in Europe. In the next days, Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti will lay out an interim budget with a goal of reducing debt, not offering the tax breaks the League wants in exchange for backing the government.

Berlusconi, observers say, is between a rock and a hard place.

"While Berlusconi at the moment has a not very big, but quite a stable majority in parliament, if the league says it's over, most certainly, it's over," says Giovanni Orsina, politics professor at the Luiss University in Rome.

Orsina says, while the Northern League has the votes to keep Berlusconi in parliament, it also risks losing its supporters if it stays aligned to Berlusconi for too long. In the short-term, it wants its seats and a say in the government. But it risks losing the support of its base if none of its demands is met.

"In the process of waiting for Berlusconi to get out of the picture and maybe getting a substantial chunk of Berlusconi's votes, they're losing themselves," says Orsina. "If they're not fast enough in severing their ties with Berlusconi, it might become a problem for them as well."

A schism growing in the Northern League

But former judge and head of the center-left Italy of Values party says with a change in leadership, the Northern League could well outlast Berlusconi.

"I know the Lega well," says Antonio Di Pietro, who lives in northern Italy. "What I notice is a growing gap between the leaders such as Umberto Bossi and the people on the ground who, with a few exceptions, do an excellent job of administering the northern region."

Di Pietro points out that in the recent referendums to strike down government decrees, Berlusconi and Bossi both told party members not to vote. The Northern League members, however, turned out to vote, helping defeat plans for nuclear power plants.

Even Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, who is emerging as a possible alternative to Bossi, has failed to deliver on key issues such as cutting taxes and stopping refugees from arriving in Italy. While trumpeting the cause of federalism and saying Italy needs to get out of Libya, last month Maroni and three other League cabinet ministers voted extra status to Rome and to support the intervention in Libya. As analyst James Wolston points out, "Consistency is obviously not part of Maroni's or the League's vocabulary."

For now, Northern League supporters continue to chant "freedom!" and "secession!" at rallies, as if it were the same revolutionary movement it began as more than a decade ago. But its leaders are well aware that, unless they get some what they want from Berlusconi, they could well begin to experience his same collapse in popularity.

Author: Megan Williams, Rome
Editor: Susan Houlton