Ethics Newsline®

Turmoil comes after probe of justice minister and discontent nationwide

ROME
Italy’s coalition government, led by Roman Prodi, fell last week after losing a vote of confidence. The turmoil, many believe, is rooted in systemic corruption that makes Italy virtually ungovernable.

Reporting from Rome, BBC analyst Christian Fraser contends that current events are “symptomatic of the country’s failure to deal with the cronyism and the rampant corruption in its midst.” Prodi’s government “promised liberal reform, bringing together an unlikely coalition of nine squabbling parties. It was a marriage of convenience between Catholics to the centre and communists on the far left. But this week — amid allegations of more corruption — it all ended in messy divorce.”

The latest scandals included the resignation of Prodi’s justice minister after it was revealed that he was the target of a corruption probe, according to a dispatch from the Rome bureau of the Los Angeles Times, which also notes that Italian lawmakers are increasingly “despised by the public, according to several surveys in which they are seen as corrupt, hugely overpaid, and eager to put personal benefit before the good of the country.”

Italy’s grim ungovernability has been highlighted in recent weeks by a garbage disposal crisis in the county’s south, where hundreds of tons of uncollected trash is rotting in the streets after trash collectors claimed the landfills are full and left it in piles that are often six feet high, according to reports from the Financial Times and Forbes.

It is widely assumed that the garbage crisis is rooted in the effects of corruption and organized crime — in particular, condemned landfills polluted beyond redemption by illegal dumping.

Sources: BBC, Jan. 27 — Los Angeles Times, Jan. 26 — Forbes, Jan. 26 — Financial Times, Jan. 26.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Jan. 22 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 14 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 17, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 17, 2007 — Related Newsline story, Dec. 10, 2007.