Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, today lost his temper with a freelance journalist at a press conference and ordered him to be ejected.
The journalist, Rocco Carlomagno, was manhandled by Ignazio La Russa, the Defence Minister, after he rose to shout an unscheduled question to the Prime Minister about the future of Guido Bertolaso, the head of the Civil Protection Agency and Mr Berlusconi's right hand man.
Mr Bertolaso has been caught up in an investigation by magistrates into an alleged bribery and sex for favours scandal involving building contracts for last year's G8 summit in Italy. He denies any wrongdoing.
Increasingly under pressure over falling ratings amid corruption scandals and bungled election candidacies by his party, Mr Berlusconi, 73, called Mr Carlomagno a "boor", adding "Mr Bertolaso will be able to sue you. Shame on you!" and asking aides to "show him the door". He added: "Every morning when you look in the mirror to comb you hair you have already ruined your day".
Mr La Russa left the podium to subdue the journalist, saying: "Behave, you lout" and grabbing him by the back of the jacket. Mr Carlomagno, a left-wing journalist noted for campaigning against nuclear power, was not ejected, but told reporters afterwards that he would lodge a complaint against Mr La Russa for "aggression", claiming the Minister had punched him in the chest.
The People of Liberty (PdL), Mr Berlusconi's centre-right party, said later that Mr Carlomagno was not a bona fide journalist, as he had claimed, but a "political actvist" who had gained entry to the press conference under false pretences and had disrupted it.
A survey today by Ipr marketing said that support for Mr Berlusconi had sunk to the lowest levels since he won his third term a year and a half ago. Only 44 per cent said they had faith in the Prime Minister, a drop of two points compared to the previous month's poll and well below the 62 per cent he enjoyed at the start of his administration. The poll also showed support for the PdL had fallen to a record low of 43 per cent.
At the press conference Mr Berlusconi urged his supporters to take to the streets of Rome on March 20, a week before regional elections, following weeks of chaos surrounding the registration of PdL candidates. However Gianfranco Fini, co-founder of the PdL and Mr Berlusconi's most likely challenger for the centre-right leadership, said he would not attend because as Speaker of the Lower House he had an "institutional role".
Lists of Mr Berlusconi's candidates in the Lazio and Lombardy regions were disqualified for not being submitted by the deadline, or for lack of authenticated signatures. Appeal judges have re-instated the candidates lists in Lombardy but not in Lazio. Mr Berlusconi blamed "left-wing" magistrates for excluding his candidates in an attempt to damage his party, and claimed PdL officials were "not at fault" even though in Lazio the lists were submitted fifteen minutes after the deadline.
Alfredo Milioni, the official given the task of submitting the Lazio lists, initially claimed he had missed the deadline because he had left the queue to buy a panino sandwich. He later changed this version of events several times, eventually claiming that members of the centre Left opposition had physically prevented him from submitting the election papers.
In a lengthy and detailed reconstruction, Mr Berlusconi, flanked by Renata Polverini, the PdL candidate for President of Lazio, said local PdL officials had been "impeded" at the electoral office by members of the left-wing Radical Party, who had created a "disturbance". Emma Bonino, leader of the Radical Party and the centre-left candidate for President of Lazio, dismissed this, saying the PdL had simply "not followed the procedures".
Pierluigi Bersani, leader of the opposition Democratic Party, said Mr Berlusconi's reconstruction of events was "a fantasy". "This was meant to be a government which acts, instead it is a government of confusion," he said. He recalled that Mr Berlusconi and his allies had initially lambasted PdL officials over their "mistakes".
Mr Berlusconi insisted the Left was "like a football team which enters the ground without opponents, with the help of friendly referees who have locked the other team in the dressing room". He said there was no question of postponing the vote.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article7057026.ece
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