Italian PM faces election heat over model

ROME - Campaigning in Italy for the European Parliament election was dominated yesterday by demands that Premier Silvio Berlusconi explain his relationship with a teenager in Naples.

Calls for the 72-year-old to explain how he came to know Noemi Letizia came after an interview in La Repubblica with the 18-year-old's former boyfriend, Gino Flaminio.

Flaminio, 22, was quoted by the left-leaning Rome daily as saying that Letizia told him that Berlusconi invited her and other young women for a week's holiday at New Year's at one of the married media magnate's Sardinian villas, and that Letizia sometimes allowed him to overhear Berlusconi's cellphone calls to her.

The politicians demanding Berlusconi say more about the Letizia case included his chief opponent, Dario Franceschini, who took the helm of the Democratic Party earlier this year after the centre-left party suffered stinging defeats at the hands of the Prime Minister's forces in Italian regional voting.

"A politician must respond to questions" about his private life, Franceschini told a campaign rally in Reggio Emilia.

Berlusconi's spokesman, Paolo Bonaiuti, accused Franceschini of "grabbing on to gossip to try to stop Berlusconi" and his party in next month's European election.

On Sunday, Berlusconi said he was "tempted" to brief Parliament about Letizia, but needed to reflect on it first.

Berlusconi is betting that his new Freedom People's party will score big in the election. He boasts a comfortable majority in Italy's Parliament since his election a year ago.

The Prime Minister has said he knows Letizia's father through decades-old Socialist party circles and that he recently attended her 18th birthday party because he happened to be in Naples that day. He gave a €6000 gold necklace to the teenager.

Days later, Berlusconi's wife, Veronica Lario, 52, criticised her husband's attendance at the birthday bash and said she wanted a divorce because he was someone who "frequents minors".

Berlusconi has denounced as a "lie" insinuations that he had a relationship with Letizia.

Also demanding on the campaign trail that Berlusconi respond to the ex-boyfriend's allegations was another top Democratic Party leader, Enrico Letta. If the details in La Repubblica's interview are true, "it would be disgusting," the Italian news agency Apcom quoted Letta as saying.

Nearly a fortnight ago, La Repubblica published 10 questions for Berlusconi about his expedition to the Naples suburb for Letizia, who commonly refers to Berlusconi as "daddy".

Curious about inconsistencies in Berlusconi's account of how he knew Letizia's father, and by Letizia's suggestion that Berlusconi was grooming her for politics, La Repubblica sent the Prime Minister a list of questions such as: "Is it true that you promised Noemi you would help her career in show business or in politics?" It also asked for details of the Prime Minister's previous meetings with her. The paper says no reply has been received.

For La Repubblica editor Ezio Mauro, the visit - and alleged discrepancies in the Prime Minister's subsequent explanation of it - have provided a test case for journalism in Berlusconi's Italy, where he controls almost half of Italy's television stations.

"There are contradictions here and when the powers that be don't explain something, journalism has a job to do," Mauro said.

In recent months there have been accusations from the left that Berlusconi is establishing a form of authoritarian populism that has little respect for Parliament, less for judges routinely described as politicised, and is far too easily able to dominate the media. The Letizia affair is becoming a kind of litmus test. "Berlusconi has one thought in his head," said Franceschini, " 'I was elected by the people and no one can judge me any more.' His strong reaction to investigative journalism is because he thinks it is immoral to have a free press and an opposition."

More than 40,000 Facebook users have joined the 10 questions campaign, signing up to a page called "Berlusconi Rispondi!" (Berlusconi reply!) But, according to Berlusconi, La Repubblica is being driven by "jealousy and hatred" as he basks in historic poll ratings.

"The motives behind the campaign of denigration by La Repubblica and its editor against Berlusconi are obvious," said a statement put out by his office.

"When Veronica Lario went public it was no longer a private matter," said Mauro. "Moreover, if anyone broke down the barriers between public and private it was Berlusconi when he sent his biography to 50 million Italians before an election."

Pressure grew last week when it emerged that Berlusconi had brought the Neapolitan blonde to a government dinner in Rome in November honouring the fashion industry, where he sat Noemi at the top table, introducing her as "the daughter of very good friends in Naples", La Repubblica reported.

Lario was quoted by Corriere della Sera on Saturday as saying: "What I have read about her presence, dressed in lame, at the dinner at Villa Madama in front of ministers and business people, reinforces my convictions: that girl, at the time, was 17."

After the dinner, Letizia jetted up to Milan for an audition as a weather girl on one of Berlusconi's channels, missing out on a job only because of her poor diction. A seat at the top table then awaited her and her mother at the Christmas party held by Berlusconi's football team, AC Milan.

The problem for La Repubblica is that Italians are apparently, as Berlusconi claims, "with him".

La Repubblica may be waiting for its answers for a long time yet.

- OBSERVER, AP