World

Berlusconi Gets Big Majority

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

March 9, 2001 / 2:54 PM EST / CBS

Billionaire media mogul Silvio Berlusconi will have a free hand to promote his conservative agenda with the absolute majority his coalition won in both houses of the Italian Parliament, final results showed Tuesday.

Berlusconi says some of his top priorities will be to reduce taxes — particularly Italy's inheritance tax — as well as to pass legislation to resolve the conflict of interest issue that dogged him in the final weeks of the election campaign.

Slim majorities in Parliament have bedeviled Italy's 58 previous post-war governments, with shifting alliances stalling or blocking legislation.

But official, final results showed Tuesday that Berlusconi's conservative coalition will have 368 seats in the 630-seat Chamber of Deputies and 177 in the 324-member Senate.

The center-left coalition ousted in Sunday's vote after five years in power will have 250 seats in the Chamber and 128 in the Senate.

As leader of the winning coalition, Berlusconi will be asked by President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi to form a government within a few weeks. He would then present the government to Parliament for the required confidence vote.

Congratulations continued to pour in Tuesday, with British Prime Minister Tony Blair phoning Berlusconi and Greek Premier Costas Simitis sending a letter to Italy's presumed new leader.

President Bush congratulated Berlusconi and the State Department said Washington hoped to "enjoy a cooperative and fruitful relationship" with his government, Italy's 59th since World War II.

Basking in victory, Berlusconi returned to the familiar Italian airwaves to accept his new mandate, promising Italians that he would keep his promises to cut taxes and create more than a million jobs.

Appearing on state television Monday night against a backdrop of gilt-framed oil paintings and antiques at his Milan villa, Berlusconi said he would need only a short time to form a government.

"I am convinced that you all feel the need for a government that governs and for a premier who speaks less and works more and better," Berlusconi said, reading from a prepared statement.

His center-left challenger, Francesco Rutelli, conceded defeat hours earlier, ending a campaign that grew increasingly bitter as questions mounted about Berlusconi's possible conflicts of interest, his legal battles, and choice of right-wing partners.

CBS News Correspondent Allen Pizzey reports that Berlusconi's right wing coalition will include openly racist and neo- fascist parties.

The traditionalist Northern League, an anti-foreigner and homophobic party, is Berlusconi's most important ally. Its leader, Umberto Bossi, has been compared to the ultra-right wing Austrian leader Jorg Haidar, whose election in 1999 brought street demonstrations in Vienna and made Austria a pariah in Europe.

Bossi is a potential deputy prime minister in the Berlusconi government.

"He's a problem because our European partners are particularly sensitiv about the xenophobic, racist language which he and his men use," says Sen. Tana Zulueta of the Olive Tree Coalition.

And on Monday, the French foreign minister, Hubert Vedrine, warned that Europe will be "very attentive" to the make-up of the new Italian government.

Berlusconi, whose first stint as premier in 1994 ended when an ally pulled out of his coalition after seven months, went into Sunday's vote as the favorite. But Rutelli closed in during the waning weeks as questions mounted about the billionaire's possible conflicts of interest.

Berlusconi, whose holdings also include Italy's three main private TV networks, rebuffed all calls to divest himself of any assets to avoid a conflict. Instead, he told voters that what was good for him was also good for them.