Getting the Boot

In a revelatory report which unfolds like an opera buffa, BBC correspondent Frei unravels the 1993 corruption scandal which toppled the political elite that had ruled Italy for nearly five decades. He carries the story forward to the second wave of scandals erupting in late 1994, by which time one-third of parliament had come under criminal investigation amid charges of extortion, kickbacks and bribes by private companies seeking public-works contracts. Toppled Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, the media and real-estate mogul whose regime lasted just eight months, emerges as ``Italy's Ross Perot,'' a monopolist who hijacked a populist revolution with promises of salvation and sweeping reform. Frei, based in Rome since 1992, provides a marvelously unbuttoned look at Italian politics, culture and society. He discusses the separatist movement in northern Italy, the resurgence of neo-fascist terrorist groups, the crackdown on the Mafia, and the Italian family, ``a tightly knit, sometimes paranoid social unit.'' Portraying Italians as a deeply conservative people, Frei urges fundamental constitutional reform to create a benevolent federalist government that would take into account the country's regional differences. (July)