HIS BROTHER has admitted organising bribery. His children are being investigated. His companies are racked with allegations and counter allegations. And his long time industrial backers have gone down the tubes.
It is no surprise then that the man at the helm is being hauled before the courts too. The recent plunge in the Lira is the strong-° est indication yet that Silvio Berlusconi's time may be up.
News broke of Berlusconi's summons for questioning by the anti-corruption investigating judges as he was chairing an international anti-mafia conference.
It is now clear why this prime minister tried to pass a decree in July to curb the judiciary's powers to imprison corruption suspects.
At that time the judges were interviewing his brother. Public outrage forced him to drop the proposed law. Today they want to talk about bribes his company Fininvest made to tax inspecTOTA Despite the clean broom image he has tried to cultivate he owes much of the phenomenal growth of his media empire to the inside support of the corrupt 1980s Craxi governments.
The latest news that he is thinking of selling his business interests shows what pressure he is under.
Denounced
Up to now he has refused to consider this - denouncing those who dared to raise the issue of a conflict of interest as wanting to install a Romanianstyle regime!
Berlusconi's difficulties could not have come at a better moment for all those fighting to stop the government's savage cuts in pensions, education spending and health.
The government aims to reduce the monster public deficit by f20 billion, in line with Maastricht strictures on permissible public sector debt.
Trade unions organised one of the biggest demonstrations since the Second World War on November 12 — one and a half million converged on Rome. A one day general strike is set for December 2.
Already local elections following the demonstration have shown Berlusconi's party Forza Italia at below 10 per cent -compared to 30 per cent in the European Elections and 25 per cent in the March general election.
Berlusconi's plight has not meant a closing of ranks within Mila 1006 the government coalition. Bossi, the leader of the Lega Nord, has pointedly refused to issue any statement of solidarity and absented himself from the emergency all-party summit.
Despite voting with the government on the vote of confidence the Lega has put down amendments softening the pension cuts. This reflects its more small business and popular base.
There is no love lost between Bossi and Berlusconi. The arrival of Forza Italia severely cut into Lega support in the north. Bossi has stayed with the government partly because new elections would be even more disastrous.
While Forza Italia's electoral support has slumped the fortunes of the National Alliance (the neo-fascists) led by Fini have blossomed, with a 13 per cent rise in the local elections. Fini is, and always has been, much more supportive of Berlusconi.
Staying in government helps his drive for a more respectable image. He hopes to pick up the remnants of Berlusconi's party if things do fall apart. He is hoping for further constitutional shifts to presidentialism.
The National Alliance is a structured national force with far deeper roots in society than the year old Forza Italia. It has been successful in dropping some of its fascist trappings and positioning itself as a more modern rightwing party.
Unfortunately one of the reasons Berlusconi survives is the ultra moderation of the opposition from the majority left.
The ex-Communist Party PDS proposes a broad constitutional government including the ex-Christian Democrats (now called the Peoples Party), the Lega, themselves and healthy forces within Forza Italia.
Worse still, it calls for any alternative government to be formed only after the finance bill is passed minus the pension cute This was, surprise surprise, the line backed in an editorial in Corriere della Sera, one of the main bourgeois papers.
In recent local elections the PDS tried to stand everywhere on slates with the ex-Christian democrats rather than with Communist Refoundation.
Communist Refoundation has been almost the only significant example of the crisis of the Communist parties leading to a leftwing split with a mass base.
It was formed only 3 years ago when the Italian Communist Party sealed its theoretical break with any notion of a class struggle approach or a communist past.
The new party was written off by many from the start. But to all observers' surprise the PRC polled better than expected, maintained its representation in parliament and has played a key role in the mass struggles against the austerity measures of successive governments - including against the Ciampi government which was de facto supported by the PDS.
Another element in the situation is a new student mobilisation in secondary schools and universities against the new local management of schools and a three-fold increase in university fees.
Schools and universities are being occupied. A massive demonstration in Naples was brutally attacked by the police and 50 people ended up in hospital.
Revolutionary socialists like the comrades of Bandera Rossa (Italian section of the Fourth International) and the most class conscious political activists work as members of Communist Refoundation.
There are no significant left wing forces outside this framework. This is a mass left reformist party which is actively supporting struggle against the austerity measures and is clearly opposed to the class collaborationist "constitutional government" line being peddled by the PDS.
This does not mean that Communist Refoundation is completely clear on its overall strategy. Even after three years it still has yet to draw up a worked out programme and strategy.
Its leadership (or sections of it) have taken mistaken positions inside the trade unions and on the precise alliances with the PDS and other forces - particularly in electoral slates.
At the moment its class position on austerity and the government does isolate it somewhat and thus there is a certain pressure on activists who feel uneasy without a working alliance with the PDS.
If Berlusconi does fall and if this leads to a rapid decline of Forza Italia then the ruling class have a problem.
Pivotal role
The new political regime depended on Berlusconi being the pivot holding together the disparate interests and programmes of the Lega and the National Alliance. This remains the case. They will do everything to keep him in office.
The alternative constitutional government would have to include the PDS, and could not be completely relied upon to carry out the tough austerity required by Italian capital. It would not be any more united than the present government.
A third variant would be a National Alliance government.
Whatever happens Italy will continue to be politically unstable. Italian socialists will have. an opportunity to build a class struggle opposition within the trade unions and student movements.