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ROME - Prosecutors in Rome have launched an investigation into claims that Silvio Berlusconi tried to electronically rig Italy's April general election.
The claims are contained in an investigative report released today in video form with a weekly political review, Il Diario.
Last April's election marked the first time that electronic voting machines were used in Italy, not to do the initial counting but to collate results arrived at by manual counting at the different polling stations.
The vote was extraordinarily close, and it was not till late in the morning of the day after the election that the centre-left announced that it had secured enough seats in both houses to form a government.
Silvio Berlusconi refused to recognize the centre-left's victory, and for weeks afterwards claimed that the election had been stolen by the opposition's skulduggery in the polling stations.
The film claims that there probably was skulduggery, but that it was all on Mr Berlusconi's side: after all, as the editor of Il Diario, Enrico Deaglio, points out, Mr Berlusconi and his allies were in power and in control of the Interior Ministry, which polices elections.
The report points out one striking anomaly in the election result: the number of blank or spoiled ballots in previous elections has shown wide variations around the country.
This time, however, the variation nationwide was only between one and two per cent.
Where, asks Deaglio, did all the other spoiled ballots go? The thesis of the film is that, thanks to software surreptitiously installed in the central computers, the spoiled ballots were transferred to Berlusconi's party, Forza Italia.
But Interior Minister Beppe Pisanu, a widely trusted former Christian Democrat, learned of the attempted fraud at the last moment and vetoed it.
After the prosecutor announced his investigation, Mr Deaglio commented, "I am favourably impressed by the speed and interest the magistrates have shown in a very important issue that has been shrouded in silence for six months."
Roberto Calderoli, a Northern League leader was a minister in Berlusconi's government, dismissed the allegations as "an inversion of reality, pure science fiction fantasy."
- INDEPENDENT
