Silvio Berlusconi

By Alan Fisher in Europe on June 14th, 2011
Photo by AFP

As the official turnout was announced, people cheered and clapped and a few even claimed tears.

Spontaneously, people started bouncing up and down, and a wave spread through the crowd.

That Italian voters would reject the resumption of the country's nuclear power programme was never in doubt. The worry for many was how many people would come out to vote.

A number of parties urged people to stay at home, the prime minister himself didn't vote, preferring to spend Sunday and Monday, the two voting days, at the beach and at the office.

He was hoping the votes would fail to pass the barrier of 50 per cent plus one of the electorate voting. Only when that figure was achieved does the result becoming legally binding.

He failed. The official turnout - 57.2 per cent, the highest in an Italian referendum in almost 20 years.

By Al Jazeera Staff in Africa on February 22nd, 2011
Alleged mercenaries deployed by Gaddafi in Tripoli, the Libyan capital.

As the uprising in Libya enters its ninth day, we keep you updated on the developing situation from our headquarters in Doha, Qatar.

By Barbara Serra in Europe on March 8th, 2010
Photo from AFP

Italy will be holding regional elections on March 28, so you’d think that, like in other Western democracies, political journalists would be at their busiest and the TV schedules dominated by debates on the most pertinent issues of the elections.

Well, no. Quite the opposite.

The government has pushed through rules which essentially make it impossible to hold a political discussion on TV in the month leading up to the election.

The new rules stipulate that if ONE candidate is interviewed or mentioned, representatives of ALL other opposing parties have to be present as well.

Bear in mind the plethora of parties usually contesting italian elections (30 and counting) and you’d have a town-hall style debate where the people on stage would outnumber the audience.

By Barbara Serra in Europe on November 27th, 2009
Photo by AFP

A divorce that could cost him $65m a year. A kiss-and-tell book by a prostitute containing a detailed account of the night she alleges she spent with him. Oh, and let’s not forget the two ongoing corruption trials. It is difficult to know how Mr Berlusconi finds the time to run a G8 country like Italy.

And its even more tricky for some outsiders to understand how Italians can find it acceptable that a man with quite so many clouds hanging over his head should run their country. 

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