Italian tribunal lifts ban on Berlusconi

An Italian tribunal has lifted a ban on veteran centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi from holding public office, meaning he could run to be prime minister in the next national election.However, the decision might have come just too late for the 81-year-old four-time prime minister, who only three days ago gave his blessing to his political ally the League to form a government without him in the wake of a disappointing election result.Berlusconi was convicted of tax fraud in 2013, triggering his expulsion from the upper house of parliament and a bar on holding any elected position for six years.However, in a decision made public yesterday, a court in the northern city of Milan which oversees the application of sentences ruled that the bar could be lifted a year early because of “good conduct”.“Finally five years of injustice has come to end,” Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party said in a statement. “Berlusconi can once again be a candidate.”Berlusconi campaigned actively ahead of a March 4 national election even though he was not a candidate.But Forza Italia did not perform as well as he had expected, slipping behind the League to lose its top spot in the centre-right bloc.Berlusconi blamed the poor showing on the fact that voters knew he could not be prime minister.The centre-right emerged as the single largest force at the March vote, while the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) emerged as the biggest individual party.Neither side won enough seats to govern alone and efforts to put together a coalition were complicated by M5S’s refusal to work with Forza Italia, saying that Berlusconi symbolised political corruption in Italy.After more than nine weeks of stalemate, and with fresh elections looking increasingly likely, Berlusconi on Wednesday finally gave his blessing to the League to seek a coalition deal without Forza Italia.Negotiations between the League and M5S are continuing, with President Sergio Mattarella giving them until tomorrow, Monday, to strike an accord.Both parties say that if they fail to agree terms, the only solution would be a revote, perhaps in July.A political source, who declined to be named, said that the fact Berlusconi is now free to run might make him less amenable to a League M5S government and could work to make life difficult for it in parliament, should it take office.The billionaire media tycoon was written off after he quit as prime minister in 2011 amid a sex scandal involving his “bunga bunga” parties, while Italian bond yields surged to unsustainable levels at the height of the eurozone debt crisis.However, he has fought hard to remain politically relevant.Last year he appealed to the European Court of Human Rights to overturn the ban on holding public office.A verdict is still awaited but the Milan ruling makes it irrelevant.