From The Guardian:”[…] Berlusconi’s triumph will send a shiver of apprehension through Brussels, where memories are still fresh of the way his government let Italy’s public finances run out of control, threatening the stability of the euro. Romano Prodi, the former European commission president and Italy’s ex-prime minister who narrowly defeated Berlusconi two years ago, reversed the trend. But to cut the budget deficit, he made the centre-left deeply unpopular by raising taxes and clamping down on evasion.
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The country looks set for five years of government headed by a 71-year-old man who has a string of trials behind him for alleged financial wrongdoing. All his convictions have been overturned on appeal and other charges against him expired under statutes of limitations.”
From The Times:
“Above all Mr Bossi will expect high office, even though he had a severe stroke four years ago and can still barely speak.
Mr Bossi has, however, described African immigrants as “Bingo Bongos” and said illegal immigrants arriving by boat should be “blown out of the water”. During the election campaign he called on his supporters to “take up arms” against “that rabble in Rome” over allegedly confusing ballot papers.
[…]
Some local League leaders have called for separate train carriages for immigrants, and the former mayor of Treviso, Giancarlo Gentilini, removed park benches in the town on the grounds that immigrants slept on them, remarking “We should dress them up like hares – and then, bang bang bang”.
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