[ANALYSIS] Tangentopoli rocks Italy (and misses Malta)

The 1990s in Italy witnessed the collapse of a republic whose antipodes seemed to rest peacefully on a consensus between left and right, big-tent parties like the communist, socialist and Christian-democrat parties, based on a historic compromise in the face of the threat to democracy posed by terrorism and a possible authoritarian drift, during the so-called "anni di piombo" (the years of lead). But Tangentopoli would uncover a network of graft spilling right inside the boardrooms of industrial giants Fiat, Ferruzzi and Olivetti, and government-owned state holding companies. Prominent businessmen were jailed. Some took their own lives in prison. The big parties, international cousins to the PN and the PL in Malta, were all but obliterated by the scandal. Populist outfits like the Lega Nord would prosper in the ensuring years.  

Tangentopoli vindicated what former Italian “eurocommunist” leader Enrico Berlinguer said when he raised the “moral question” in 1981, lamenting the end of passionate, ideological debate and its substitution by self-serving patronage networks. Himself an architect of the historic compromise between the Italian Communist Party and the Christian Democrtic Party in a bid to save democracy, Berlinguer became increasingly disillusioned by a system which turned parties, big and small, in to brokers of patronage. But even Berlinguer’s heirs, crippled by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 and to some degree tainted by corruption scandals, failed to capitalise on the demise of their adversaries.

Political deities like Giulio Andreotti and Bettino Craxi suffered a disgraceful exit, the enduring image that of Craxi greeted by a salvo of coins by protesters. His friend Silvio Berlusconi, the media tycoon, emerged as the ultimate winner, using a coalition that included the populist Lega Nord led by Umberto Bossi and the neo-fascist party of Gianfranco Fini. Italian politics drifted between Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and repeated attempts at unity by left-wing parties. Over the course of 20 years the Italian billionaire defended himself from accusations of corruption in court, yet winning elections in 1994, 2001 and 2008, before his final bow when he resigned under the cloud of the 'bunga bunga' sex scandal.

Tagentopoli as viewed in Malta

In 1992 Malta was enjoying an economic boom presided by Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami, elected in 1987 on a promise to do away with the blatant corruption and political violence which characterised Labour’s 1980s rule. He won re-election in 1992 with 13,000 votes, the larger ever garnered by a PN government.

While his government took steps to create independent institutions such as the Planning Authority, the Ombudsman and local councils, political patronage remained ingrained, as a building boom continued to spill into the countryside. The feel-good factor that better living standards brought after the tumultuous 1980s made the country and its complacent media overlook corruption and graft.

Maltese eyes were then glued to the news relayed by Italian TV channels, still untouched by the advent of cable TV and the shift to English language network. Tangentopoli had a marked impact on Arnold Cassola, today the chairperson of the Green Party Alternattiva Demokratika – which in the 1990s brought together campaigners and environmentalists like Peppi Azzopardi, Savioru Balzan, and Labour dissidents Wenzu Mintoff and Toni Abela (who returned to the PL as candidates and officials, and now are judges). Having returned from a long academic sojourn in Italy, Cassola had been mainly in the company of antimafia activists and left-leaning Christian intellectuals. Mintoff’s own political formation owed a lot to Berlinguer’s brand of euro-communism. Even the term ‘tangentopoli’ itself pervaded the vocabulary of this extra-parliamentary left, with Michael Briguglio (also a future AD leader) using ‘Hiltonopoly’ for his undergraduate dissertation on the relationship between developers and the state.

Ideological overtones

But Tangentopoli was largely ignored by Labour and the Nationalists, except in the childish use of “socialists” and “Christian democrats” as terms of political abuse by the rival parties.

An immediate consequence was Labour dropping its socialist tag to emphasise its labourite roots. Youth organ Ghaqda Zghazagh Socjalisti became the Forum Zghazagh Laburisti.

Even the PN itself was deprived of an ideological reference point with the extinction of the Italian DC: its own left-wing current, inspired by the Jesuit priest Bartolomeo Sorge, had been a major source of inspiration for young Turks like George Pullicino and Carmel Cacopardo (who subsequently drifted away and is now deputy chairperson of the Green Party). Louis Galea, the PN stalwart and organiser and ideologue, best represented the DC model that enabled the PN to turn from an elitist party into a mass party under Fenech Adami. Even Galea survived allegations of political patronage throughout his career, until losing his seat in 2008 to newcomer Franco Debono.

Labour and Craxi’s party were mainly tied by the two countries’ diplomatic relations, best illustrated by the financial protocol that lasted well into the 1990s and 2000s. But Craxi reconciled socialist symbolism and social liberalism with crony capitalism, a model which retains life inside Joseph Muscat’s party. The flamboyance and licentiousness of Craxi’s “aspirational” generation of socialists seems to be an inescapable comparison with Labour’s rising stars.  Joseph Muscat has also toyed with the idea of a "second republic", a phrase used in Italy to describe the rapture created by tangentopoli which brought an end to the "first republic," founded by the partisans in post war Italy.

A Maltese Tangentopoli never did materialise. While graft allegations had dominated the political scene for the decades, with Alfred Sant’s own crusade against barons and “friends of friends”, to the present-day outcry on Panamagate, Malta lacks the kind of judicial system that produced prosecuting magistrates like Antonio Di Pietro. Some of those investigations, which savaged the political and capitalist class, were also motivated by ideological zeal, earning some magistrates the moniker of ‘red togas’.

Italy’s often chaotic judicial and criminal investigation system benefits from a caste of magistrates who can commence investigations on their own steam, usually with phone interceptions. Surely this came at a cost, with some having their reputation severely tarnished, only to be found innocent after years spent in the wilderness.  

But Tangentopoli’s lasting effect was that of stripping politicians and business leaders of their impunity thanks to the courage of a few magistrates who left no stone unturned to bring the rich and powerful to justice.

One wonders how Italian judges may have acted when faced with Malta’s oil scandal or Panamagate. But the Italian example also proves that even judicial investigations offer no short-cut to political change. Silvio Berlusoni still managed to win and stay in power. Now the country faces a bleak choice between a populist comedian, whose own underlings are not immune to sleaze, and a political establishment reincarnated in the messianic figure of Matteo Renzi.

Enrico Berlinguer’s moral question remains as relevant as ever in both Italy and Malta.