Berlusconi

Sex Scandals

Prime minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi has been involved in so many bizarre sex scandals over the years (and the past few days) that it's almost like creeping is his hobby. According to Hada Messia, a reporter of CNN, it all began on April 28 when La Repubblica newspaper wrote that the prime minister had attended

the 18 th birthday party of Noemi Letizia, an aspiring showgirl. As a result in May of 2009, Berlusconi’s second wife announced that she is divorcing him after photos surface of him attending the birthday party . Later, it was revealed that public

prosecutors in Bari had begun a corruption investigation into an entrepreneur named Giampaolo Tarantini, suspected of procuring high-class prostitutes to attend parties at

Berlusconi’s mansion, Palazzo Grazioli, in Rome.

True, revelations about politicians’ purely private misdemeanors are rarely the

cause of scandal in Italy; but the norms perceived as having been transgressed in this case

went beyond the area of sex and the premier’s marriage and concerned at least three

aspects, first, abuse of office of an informal kind in that Berlusconi’s wife’s

announcement was accompanied by her denunciation, as ‘shamelessly tacky’, of his

decision to field as candidates in the European elections a number of young women who,

it seems, kept him company in his free time and whose careers he had assisted in the

world of entertainment. He was also accused of abuse of office in a more formal sense

when it was alleged that he had used ‘official government aircraft to fly private guests,

including young actresses and a Neapolitan balladeer described as his personal

“minstrel”, to his luxury villa in Sardinia’ (National Post, 07 Nov).

Second, the scandal involved allegations

of lying. Shortly after the Noemi Letizia affair broke la Repubblica newspaper publicly

put to him ten questions surrounding the affair which he answered first one way and then

another. For example,...