After a little more than 100 days in office, storm clouds are beginning to gather over Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, facing the first glimmer of revolt from within his center-right coalition in Italy.
Last week's ratification of a bill on judicial cooperation with Switzerland, which runs contrary to international efforts to streamline the fight against terrorist funding, has led many on the right to cry foul.
Around 20 members of his own coalition backed a communist amendment to the law during the latter stages of its noisy passage through parliament, causing it to be sent back to the Senate for further fine-tuning.
That rap on the knuckles from dissident legislators bumped the cohesion of Berlusconi's center-right coalition, which is based on a large majority in parliament.
But influential voices are also being raised outside parliament.
Journalist Giuliano Ferrara, former spokesman for Berlusconi's first, short-lived government in 1994, turned on his former boss in a weekend newspaper editorial, bluntly telling the prime minister that he had gone too far: "That won't do".
The law has been widely denounced because it makes it easier for defense lawyers, for instance those currently defending Berlusconi on charges of judge-bribing -- which he denies -- to exploit loopholes in the differing ways the Swiss and Italians authenticate documents for purposes of court evidence.
Critics have also blasted the rather pointed dismissal by the justice ministry of five judges for criticizing the new judicial cooperation law.
Ferrara, writing in the daily Il Foglio, advises Berlusconi to tone things down, "in his own interest, and in Italy's".
He slammed an "arrogant" Berlusconi for appearing to be believe in his "omnipotence" and accused him of adopting a paranoiac "siege mentality", seeing plots everywhere among the opposition and the press.
Berlusconi had indeed blasted the press for misinterpreting his comments on the West's superiority over an Islamic culture which he said was stuck in the past, causing a diplomatic furore among Arab states and western allies alike.
Sunday's Corriere della Sera lashed out at Berlusconi in a front page editorial under the headline "Blame the journalists."
The paper said Berlusconi's diplomatic gaffe "confirms, perhaps, that he is not an 'exportable' leader. Some wines are better tasted on the spot, they don't travel well."
The prime minister has also drawn fire over the budget, blasted by Italy's employers' confederation vice president Edoardo Garrone as "weak, colorless and lacking innovation".
But despite the growing chorus of disapproval in some quarters, Berlusconi's can-do charm and undoubted business acumen ensures he is ever-popular with the people who count, the Italian public.
Next year's budget increases state pensions, and raises police, army and teachers' salaries, even though election campaign promises on tax-cuts, and labour law, have had to be put off because of the global economic slowdown.
Berlusconi begins his international rehabilitation this week with a visit to Brussels which has assumed greater importance in the light of his recent wayward comments.
He is also due in Washington soon to meet George W. Bush, but no date has yet been fixed for a meeting seen here as far more important to Berlusconi than to the US president.
According to Corriere della Sera, after the gaffe over Islam -- which came as Bush was seeking to involve Arab states in a global coalition against terrorism -- Berlusconi is "on the waiting list. For such an Italy, there is no need to hurry” -- ROME (AFP)
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
