Mani pulite

Mani pulite (pronounced [ˈmaːni puˈliːte], Italian for "clean hands") was a nationwide judicial investigation into political corruption in Italy held in the 1990s. Mani pulite led to the demise of the so-called "First Republic", resulting in the disappearance of many political parties. Some politicians and industry leaders committed suicide after their crimes were exposed. Antonio Di Pietro was the main judicial figure in charge of the operation.

In some accounts, as many as 5,000 public figures fell under suspicion. At one point, more than half of the members of the Italian Parliament were under indictment. More than 400 city and town councils were dissolved because of corruption charges. The estimated value of bribes paid annually in the 1980s by Italian and foreign companies bidding for large government contracts reached 4 billion dollars (6.5 trillion lire).

The corrupt system uncovered by these investigations was usually referred to as Tangentopoli (Italian pronunciation: [tandʒenˈtɔːpoli]). The term derives from tangente, which means kickback and in this context refers to kickbacks given for public works contracts, and poli meaning city; it is thus sometimes translated as "Bribesville" or "Kickback City."

Arrest of Mario Chiesa

Tangentopoli began on 17 February 1992 when judge Antonio Di Pietro had Mario Chiesa, a member of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), arrested for accepting a bribe from a Milan cleaning firm. The PSI distanced themselves from Chiesa, with PSI leader Bettino Craxi calling him mariuolo, or "villain", a "wild splinter" of the otherwise clean party. Upset over this treatment by his former colleagues, Chiesa began to give information about corruption implicating them. This marked the beginning of the mani pulite investigation; news of political corruption began spreading in the press.

Extension of anti-corruption investigations

In the 1992 elections, the centre-right Christian Democracy (DC) held on to power when its coalition government kept a small majority, while leftist opposition parties gained support. However, the Italian Communist Party split after the fall of the Soviet Union, depriving the opposition of leadership. Many votes went to the far-right Lega Nord, which was not inclined to form alliances with other parties at the time. The resulting parliament was therefore weak and difficult to bring to an agreement.

During April 1992, many industrial figures and politicians from both the government and the opposition were arrested on charges of corruption. While the investigations started in Milan, they quickly spread to other towns as more politicians confessed. One grotesque situation occurred when a Socialist politician immediately confessed to all of his crimes to two Carabinieri who had come to his house, only to later discover that they had come to deliver a mere fine for a traffic violation.

Fundamental to this increased exposure was the general attitude of the main politicians to drop support for subordinates who got caught; this made many of them feel betrayed, and they often implicated many other figures, who in turn would implicate even more. On 2 September 1992, the Socialist politician Sergio Moroni, charged with corruption, committed suicide. He left a letter pleading guilty, declaring that crimes were not for his personal gain but for the party's benefit, and accused the financing system of all the political parties.

Effect on national politics

In the local December elections, DC lost half of their votes. The day after that, Bettino Craxi, leader of the Italian Socialist Party, was officially accused of corruption. After many other politicians were accused and jailed, Craxi eventually resigned.

On 5 March 1993, the Italian government of Giuliano Amato and his justice minister Giovanni Conso tried to find a solution with a decree, which allowed criminal charges for several bribery-related crimes to be replaced by administrative charges instead; according to Italian popular opinion at the time, that would have resulted in a de facto amnesty for most corruption charges. Amid public outrage and nationwide rallies, the Italian president of the Republic Oscar Luigi Scalfaro refused to sign the decree, deeming it unconstitutional. The following week, a US$250 million affair involving Eni, the government-controlled national energy company, was revealed. The stream of accusation, jailing and confessions continued.

On 25 March 1993, the Italian parliament changed the municipal electoral law in favor of a majoritarian system. Later, on 18 April, the public overwhelmingly backed the abrogation of the existing proportional representation parliamentary electoral law in a referendum (a mixed system was introduced that August), causing Amato to resign three days later. Still shocked by the recent events, the Parliament was unable to produce a new government. Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, former governor of the national bank, was appointed head of the government and appointed a technical government without political influences. In the meantime, the investigation of Craxi was blocked by the parliament. Several members of the government, having been in office just three days, resigned in protest; among them were Francesco Rutelli, Minister of the Environment and Vincenzo Visco, Minister of Finance. In new local elections on 6 June 1993, DC lost half of its votes once again; the Socialist Party virtually disappeared. Instead Lega Nord, a protest movement with some ideological elements ranging from xenophobia and racism to independence from the rest of Italy and a general loathing of the political system, became the strongest political force in Northern Italy. The left-wing opposition was approaching majority, but still lacked unity and leadership.

Eventually, all four parties in government in 1992 disappeared, at different times in different ways: the Christian Democracy, the Italian Socialist Party, the Italian Socialist Democratic Party, and the Italian Liberal Party. The Democratic Party of the Left, the Italian Republican Party and the Movimento Sociale Italiano were the only surviving national parties; the Republican party is the only one that has maintained its name since.

According to the American ambassador Reginald Bartholomew, behind the operation there was the CIA who helped the Italian prosecutors to accuse the politicians.

The Cusani trial

On 20 July 1993, the former Eni president, Gabriele Cagliari, committed suicide in jail. His wife later gave back $3 million of illegal funds.

Meanwhile, the trial of Sergio Cusani began. Mr. Cusani was accused of crimes connected to a joint venture between Eni and Montedison, named Enimont. It was broadcast on national television, and was a sort of showcase of the old politics being brought to their responsibilities. While Cusani himself was not a major figure, the connection of his crimes to the Enimont affair called in all the nation's major politicians as witnesses.

A high note was reached in the Cusani trial when former head of government Arnaldo Forlani, answering a question, simply said "I don't remember"; he also happened to be very nervous and did not notice that sweat was accumulating on his lips, and that image was by many considered symbolic of the people's disgust for the corruption system. Bettino Craxi, instead, admitted that his party received $93 million of illegal funds. His defense was that "everyone was doing this" anyway.

Even the Lega Nord was brought in the trial; secretary Umberto Bossi and former treasurer Alessandro Patelli were convicted for receiving 200 million lire of illegal funding (approx. $100,000 at the time).

A bribe to the Italian Communist Party was alleged, but it was not established who had committed the offence. A number of Milanese members of the Democratic Party of the Left were charged with corruption during their time as members of the PCI but they were acquitted. As prosecutor Antonio Di Pietro stated, "Penal responsibility is personal. I cannot bring here a person with first name Communist and last name Party".

The Enimont trial itself was carried out after the Cusani trial, with much less public interest.

Investigations on other fronts

In the meantime, the investigation expanded outside the political range: on 2 September 1993 the Milan judge Diego Curtò was arrested. On 21 April 1994, 80 financial policemen and 300 industry personalities were charged with corruption. A few days later, the secretary of the large Fiat corporation admitted corruption with a letter to a newspaper.

In 1994, Silvio Berlusconi entered politics by storm and won the elections. Many think that this move was to preserve his many industries from possible corruption charges. This suspicion was reinforced on 11 February, when Silvio Berlusconi's brother, Paolo, admitted to corruption crimes. On 13 July 1994, the Berlusconi government made a new law to avoid jail time for most corruption crimes.

The law was carefully timed as Italy had defeated Bulgaria in the 1994 Football World Cup's semifinals, and it is likely that the government expected to exploit an eventual victory to pass the law under silence in a football-crazy country. However, as Roberto Baggio shot high the last penalty against Brazil, and the news was showing images of hated, corrupt politicians getting out of jail, the public opinion became enraged; the images of Francesco De Lorenzo, former minister of Health, were especially striking, since the general public perceived stealing money from hospitals an especially hateful act.

Just a few days before, the arrested policemen had been talking about corruption in the Fininvest media industry, the biggest Berlusconi family property. Most of the Mani pulite investigation pool declared that they would respect the state's laws, but they could not work in a situation where duty and conscience were to conflict: they requested therefore to be reassigned to other duties.

Since the government could not afford to be seen as an adversary of the popular judge pool, the decree was hastily revoked and marked a "misunderstanding"; minister for internal affairs Roberto Maroni from Lega Nord claimed that he had not even had the chance to read it. While the minister of Justice was Alfredo Biondi, allegations that Cesare Previti, a lawyer from Berlusconi's company Fininvest, had written it, are at least credible.

On 29 July Berlusconi's brother was again arrested and immediately released.

Escalating conflict between Silvio Berlusconi and Antonio Di Pietro

At this point there began what has been described by many as the "Berlusconi-Di Pietro battle". While Berlusconi's industries were being investigated, "inspectors" were sent from the government to the Milanese judges' office to look for formal irregularities. None were ever found, but this tactic, coupled with Berlusconi's firm grip on the information system, helped spread what is described in other environments as FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt). The battle ended without winners: on 6 December Di Pietro resigned. Two weeks later, the Berlusconi government resigned before a critical confidence vote in Parliament, which was generally expected to go against them.

During 1995, many investigations were started against Antonio Di Pietro, who would years later be cleared of all charges, while Silvio Berlusconi incurred other charges of corruption. It was later found that the main prosecutor of Antonio Di Pietro in these times, Fabio Salamone from Brescia, was the brother of a man that Antonio Di Pietro himself had prosecuted, and who was sentenced to 18 months of jail for various corruption charges. It took however some time before the authorities realized this and ordered Salamone to other duties even though his investigations had taken a completely different direction: Paolo Berlusconi (Silvio's brother) and Cesare Previti (former minister) were accused of a conspiracy against Di Pietro but the prosecutor who later replaced Salamone asked for their acquittal and so did the court.

After being cleared, Antonio Di Pietro went into politics, something he had previously ruled out on the grounds that he did not want to exploit the popularity gained doing what he perceived to be just his duty. His movement is named Italia dei Valori ("Italy of values").

In 1998, Cesare Previti, former manager of Fininvest and then sitting in parliament after the Berlusconi government, avoided jailing thanks to parliamentary intervention, even though Berlusconi and his allies were in opposition. Bettino Craxi was sentenced to several years cumulative jail time in definitive convictions and fled to Tunisia, where he remained until his death on 19 January 2000.

Statutory term strategy

After 1994, the danger of trials being cancelled due to the expiration of statutory terms was becoming very real. This was clear to the judges and to the politicians, and the latter ones (with no distinction between Berlusconi's coalition and the Olive Tree, especially under the leadership of Massimo D'Alema) either ignored the pleas of the judiciary system for more funding to buy equipment, or passed laws that made the notoriously slow Italian trials even slower and subject to earlier prescription.

Furthermore, the intricate nature of Italian laws allowed cunning lawyers to use many delaying tactics: an instructive example was a prosecution of Silvio Berlusconi, where he was accused of misappropriation of funds of his own company, Fininvest, in order to prepare black funds that could have been used for bribes or other illegitimate purposes; on the last possible day, a lawyer from Fininvest appeared in court and complained that his company had not been formally notified of the trial. While this trial was well publicized in the media (and also in Fininvest's media themselves), the formality forced the trial to be restarted from scratch, and Berlusconi was finally acquitted by expiration of statutory terms. Being acquitted in this first trial, he could later benefit from a general reduction of terms for other trials, which in turn expired earlier with a domino effect.

After Silvio Berlusconi's victory in 2001, public opinion had turned so far against judges, where it is not only openly acceptable to criticize judges for having carried out Mani pulite, but also increasingly difficult to broadcast opinions favorable to Milan's pool. Some blame Berlusconi's power in media as having played a role in this change or the inability of the opposite parties to gain the consent of the conservative electors. Even Umberto Bossi, whose Lega Nord has been an opposition party became highly critical of judges.

Lottizzazione

The term lottizzazione, meaning the way a terrain is divided up in minor parts or lotti, came to indicate the procedure of awarding top positions in important state conglomerates such as IRI, ENEL or ENI to political figures, or at least managers with a clear political orientation. This usually trickled down to lower levels, creating power centres depending on political parties that controlled a significant part of the production system. The available seats were usually awarded so that government parties (and opposition parties like the Italian Communist Party) would get a share of power corresponding to their perceived influence in the government.

In modern culture

In 2005, artist Gianni Motti created a piece of soap, named Mani Pulite based on the scandal. This piece was claimed to have been created out of the fat from a liposuction of Silvio Berlusconi. It was sold at the 36th edition of Art Basel for 15,000 euros.

A 2015 television series titled 1992 is based on the events of mani pulite.

Mani Pulite - a Trigger for NGO in Austria

In 2009 the NGO "Saubere Hände" of Austria was founded. The rank of Transparency International shows Austria on the same level as Ireland and behind USA, Chile and Uruguay. The Austrian NGO tries to fight against corruption by documenting and sharing cases on their home page.

See also

• History of Italy as a Republic
• Giovanni Falcone
• Bancopoli (Italian scandal in 2005)
• Calciopoli
• -gate suffix

External links

• (Italian) Tangentopoli e il crollo dei partiti
• (Italian) Mani Pulite
• (Italian) [1]
• Italy's 'Clean Hands' Judges Bite Their Nails - New York Times