Centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi, whose defeat in April elections was partly due to ballots cast outside Italy, voiced doubts on Monday about whether Italians abroad should have voting rights at all. "They don't pay taxes - it's rather debatable whether they should vote," Berlusconi said in an interview with Milanese TV station Telenova.
The crucial amendment to the Italian constitution that gave Italians resident abroad the vote was approved in 2000, with the support of both political blocs. Laws implementing the change were approved a year later under the Berlusconi government.
Among the reform's strongest supporters was the rightwing National Alliance party, whose chief campaigner on the issue, Mirko Tremaglia, served as minister for Italians abroad throughout the 2001-2006 legislature. Hearing Berlusconi's suggestion that votes should be tied to taxes, Tremaglia retorted that the former premier must have been "absent-minded" or "ill-informed" to say such a thing.
"In that case one million tax evaders in Italy shouldn't vote, and neither should the millions of people who have no income, and therefore pay no taxes," he said. The former minister also said that Italians dotted around the world guaranteed their mother country indirect earnings of 100 billion euros.
Speaking on Monday, Berlusconi indicated he had only voted for the constitutional reform and the subsequent implemention in order to keep his rightwing ally happy. "Unfortunately, if we hadn't done this, the government would have fallen. Very often I went along with things that I didn't agree with," he said.
The vote of Italians abroad turned out to be crucial in last month's general election, where Berlusconi's centre-right coalition appeared to have won control of the Senate until the foreign votes were counted. The centre left, lead by Romano Prodi, garnered five of the six Senate seats reserved for Italians abroad and so grabbed a two-seat majority in the upper house. Although Berlusconi fell short of saying he lost the
election because of Italian nationals in other countries, Tremaglia was quick to stress his view that this was not, in any case, true.
"More of them voted for the Right than the Left, perhaps Berlusconi didn't know. The mistake we made was standing with five different slates instead of a single one," he said. New Premier Romano Prodi has not included a minister for Italians abroad in his new cabinet, a move that has disappointed some senators in his coalition.
Meanwhile, MPs from Puglia - the southern region from which many Italians emigrated last century - at the weekend called for Tremaglia to be named a life senator, in recognition of his work for Italians abroad.
