Comment is free: A very Italian coup - by Martin Kettle

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A very Italian coup - by Martin Kettle

It is a long time since there has been coup d'etat in a western European country, so maybe we have forgotten what they look like. Apart from Greece in 1967, I think the last successful attempt to defy an election in our part of the world was carried out by General Franco in the 1930s. But Silvio Berlusconi is getting as close as possible - and much closer than he should - to emulating the Caudillo and the colonels. His refusal to accept the official results of Italy's general election may technically just squeeze within the country's constitutional rules - though I'm sceptical about that - but it is indisputably the act of a moral law-breaker. It is not the right way to behave in a democracy. When the other guy gets more votes and seats, Silvio, then you have to quit. The team that gets the most goals is the winner, even in a penalty shoot-out. Them's the rules. But Berlusconi has always been a rule-breaker, a law-avoider, a responsibility shirker. The refusal to accept the existing rules is at the heart of his politics. That is why he not quitting now. And, while we're at it, let's put the next great fear out on the table here too.

The longer Berlusconi clings to power, the more likely that he will fix the result, by bribery or dirty tricks, in his favour. By all means have a review and a recount and so on - but not under the supervision of a government that is trying to hang on to office.

What we are seeing is close as dammit to an outrage to democracy of the kind with which the European Union is not unfamiliar. This was the way Milosevic behaved when Serbs voted him out. It is the way Viktor Yanukovich acted when Ukrainians had the effrontery to vote for Yushchenko. If Berlusconi does not quit, the nations of Europe should break off diplomatic relations. Italy should be excluded from all EU functions until the will of the electorate is respected. If Europe allows Berlusconi to stay in power it will have proved itself as useless as the League of Nations was when it failed to stand up to another Italian autocrat 70 years ago."