ROME, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- Riding a wave of popularity, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has brushed aside charges that he bribed judges to win control of a former state-owned food company, saying that an investigation that is in its final stages would find him innocent, and that even if he was found guilty he would not resign.
Indeed, a new poll shows that despite the serious charges levied against their leader, most Italians remain unconcerned. More than two-thirds of the population give Berlusconi high marks in approval ratings.
Berlusconi and Cesare Previti, a minister in the previous Berlusconi government, have been accused of using bribes to wrest control of food company SME in 1986. The investigation, which is scheduled to conclude around mid-February, is the first of four into alleged financial wrongdoing directly involving the 64-year-old leader.
But in an interview in France, republished locally and confirmed by Berlusconi's office, the prime minister said the odds were in his favor.
"I have as much chance of being convicted (of the bribery charges) as I have of changing stripes and becoming a communist," said the leader of Italy's largest right-wing party and the head of a $13 billion media empire. "Besides, even if I were convicted, I would never resign."
Berlusconi's spokesman declined to elaborate on the prime minister's comments.
The other cases pending against Berlusconi deal with alleged false accounting, tax evasion and corruption. But the bribery charge will be the first to receive a ruling.
"A lot of time and effort have gone into finding proof to support the allegations," Giuseppe Forloni, a retired member of parliament, told United Press International. "The pending cases are not directly related, but the outcome of this first case will set a sort of informal precedent regarding the future ones. The prosecution has called its strongest (case first and) that makes this one the most important."
Although Berlusconi, who was also prime minister for seven months in 1994, has been charged with multiple crimes since he burst onto the national scene 20 years ago, he has never been successfully convicted of any wrongdoing.
In the case involving SME, both Berlusconi and Previti have always maintained their innocence. Furthermore, Berlusconi has called the charges in the SME case "character assassination," and he has accused judges of trying to convict him for political reasons.
Since taking office for the second time in June 2001, Berlusconi and his allies have passed several rules that critics and some local media claim are designed to weaken or delay the pending cases against Berlusconi.
Controls over the extent to which elected officials can control private companies have been weakened; the statute of limitations on some crimes similar to those Berlusconi has been charged with have been shortened; and inaccurate accounting practices have been decriminalized.
Most recently, an initiative that makes it difficult for investigators from non-EU countries to pursue cases in Italy has come into force -- a rule that critics say is a direct response to the SME case. Evidence for that case relies heavily on proof uncovered in Switzerland, which is not a member of the European Union.
"Clearly the strategy is to make the case unwinnable for the prosecution or delay it enough that the statute of limitations runs out," Massimo Reti, an official with the Ulivo, the main opposition party, told UPI. "It is a mystery why people are not outraged at this."
Regardless, the new survey from the polling firm Opinioni shows Italians are clearly not outraged. Asked to rank the 10 national issues in order of importance, Berlusconi's legal woes were seventh, behind issues such as low rainfall in northern and central Italy (which was third) and the race for this year's coveted soccer title (which was sixth). Italy's economic plan topped the list.
The same poll showed the prime minister's approval ratings at nearly 70 percent -- only slightly lower than they have been in other recent polls.
Despite Berlusconi's links to the media -- his empire includes the three largest Italian television networks, a major newspaper, an advertising company and several Internet-related ventures -- his constituency appears impervious to the allegations largely on its own. While his own media has treated them lightly, for example, they have been front-page news in other publications.
"I wouldn't say that people don't know about the prime minister's legal problems," an Opinioni spokeswoman said. "I think this is a matter of it not being clear how all this is relevant to them."
