Because he is over 70 years of age, Silvio Berlusconi will not actually go to prison for the coming year, but will serve his sentence either under house arrest or re-education at the hands of social workers. His passport will be confiscated, and for six years he cannot run for public office. A crucial question is whether he will be forced to resign his Senate seat or will choose to resign beforehand. As Berlusconi himself said, in an emotional TV monologue just hours after his conviction of fiscal fraud Thursday, the judges "have come down on me without precedent. But I am staying on the playing field."
Although apparently on advice of his lawyers, Berlusconi had said repeatedly in recent weeks that the government would remain intact whatever the trial outcome. On Friday, however, he made an about-face after hours of tense meetings in Rome with his closest party aides. The outcome: Berlusconi now says that his ministers will withdraw from the government, precipitating new elections, perhaps as soon as October. Because President Giorgio Napolitano has the faculty to grant Berlusconi an amnesty, the threat of collapsing the government amounts to prompting Napolitano to salvage the government so as to avoid the expense and - as many believe - futility of new national general elections only months after the last.
