It's Tight and Nasty in Ohio... I mean Italia

by **Gouda** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 7:20 pm

Anyone following the italian elections today? It is starting to look a lot like the gore-kerry-bush thing. They are on pins and needles. Prodi and his center-left union coalition were leading in exit polling all day, and early projections by the media set the expectation of a Berlusconi loss. But, but, but now things are tight, leaning toward a Berlusconi win, at least in the upper house/senate. Early hopes dashed (not that Prodi, the drab neolib, like Kerry, was any savior) for the left. Chatter on left-leaning blogs sounding an awful lot like US post-election despondancy - talk about migration to africa and renouncing italian passports should berlusconi win. A loss of faith in democracy is taking hold (these are the younger commentators mind you). OK, and there are some reports of irregularities regarding the immediate (a huge turnaround in a 30-minute period) reversal of the results, and strange delays in reporting results from the interior ministry. Yep, electronic voting machine arrived in Italy just in time for this election - and guess what, they are in private hands, with close ties to Berlusconi's government, awarded in dubious bidding contracts. The administration of the machines is being handled by a small army of private sector personnel chosen in consultation with the government. I also understand that the 4 regions chosen for electronic voting machine deployment were undecided, very even in polling. <a href="http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/04/news/rome.php">www.iht.com/articles/2006...s/rome.php</a> <blockquote>Quote:<hr> With the arrival of the April 9 and 10 general elections, the dress rehearsals are over. Electronic vote tabulating will move beyond the test phase in Italy for the first time: It will be used in four of the nation's 20 regions and will affect a fifth of the population...The main contract was awarded without a public tender to Telecom Italia, the nation's dominant telecommunications company and the former government monopoly. It hired the consulting firm Accenture to do some of the work. Gianmario Pisanu, a partner at Accenture, is the son of the interior minister. Telecom Italia declined to comment on how Accenture was picked. A spokeswomen for the consulting company declined to comment on the contract. She did say, however, that Pisanu would have no role in work connected to the vote tallies. Maurizio Chiocchetti, an official for Democrats of the Left, the largest party in the center-left coalition, said: "It's pretty strange that there wasn't a public tender and that can't help but lead you to have a thousands thoughts about what might be going on behind the scenes. Even if you don't think there has been anything illegal going on, it makes you wonder." There was no time for a public tender, De Marchi said, because the exact election date was not set until January. "You can't hold a public tender when all you have are approximate dates for an election because the companies can't bid until they have exact dates," he said. He also disputed suggestions from the center-left that the Accenture connection was improper. "We didn't chose Accenture," De Marchi said, "that was done by Telecom Italia. And anyway it seems to me ridiculous to exclude a company from doing any government work just because the son of a minister works there. I don't think that is done in the United States or anywhere else for that matter."... Detractors worry that mischief will mar the count, especially if there is a close race in any of the four regions, which have many undecided voters... "You can't play with the instruments of democracy," said Pino Sgobio, a leader of the Italian Communist Party. In an interview with news agencies last week, he asked: "What kind of telephone line will be used to transfer the data to the Interior Ministry and who will chose the people in charge of sending that data and based on what criteria?" The authorities at each polling station will enter the results into a computer and save the data on an encrypted USB memory stick that is formatted to work only on certain computers. The memory sticks will be collected in one room, where the data will be read and sent on to the Interior Ministry in Rome. Polling officials are to follow every step of the process. The intent is to speed up the count. But the critics said such a development could lead to a crisis of the type that shut down Florida after the U.S. presidential election in 2000...<hr></blockquote> <a href="http://www.correntewire.com/electronic_voting_fraud_italian_style">www.correntewire.com/elec...lian_style</a> <blockquote>Quote:<hr>This operation, which is not necessary and has not been requested by anyone, costs 34 Million Euro and was outsourced by private negotiations for reasons of urgency, “since the time interval available was very short” according to Stanca. The contracts were won by three companies: Accenture, EDS and Telecom Italia. Deaglio points out that the son of the Minister of the Interior Pisanu is a partner in Accenture and that EDS is the company involved in the presumed electoral fraud in Florida for the election of Bush<hr></blockquote> Also interesting is that Berlusconi had commisioned the services of the american PR, polling and marketing firm, "Penn, Shoen & Berland Associates" who have provided services to the likes of Bill and Hillary Clinton, Michael Bloomberg, and Tony Blair. They are also known for interference/confusion in Venezuela's elections (contra chavez polling) and exit-polling interference in Serbia's 2000 elections.(Source: Wikipedia)

by **Rigorous Intuition** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 7:41 pm

<a href="http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2006-04-10T193536Z_01_L06742415_RTRUKOC_0_UK-ITALY.xml">Italy's election swings Berlusconi's way -pollster</a> Mon Apr 10, 2006 8:35 PM BST169 ROME (Reuters) - The result of Italy's general election hung in the balance on Monday, as one pollster said partial returns suggested Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi might win a shock majority in both houses of parliament. A second pollster predicted that centre-left challenger Romano Prodi would just hold off Berlusconi, leaving the result of the two-day vote on a knife-edge. Exit polls at the end of the two-day ballot said Prodi had won the election, taking between 50-54 percent of the vote. But as the count proceeded, Nexus pollsters said the centre-right was advancing and could eventually end up the winner. Centre-left leaders reacted with dismay and disbelief as the polls changed direction, revealing a country split in two after five years of Berlusconi government. Centre-right leaders were cautious, saying they would wait for official results due later on Monday before commenting. Nexus said that on the basis of its analysis of returns six hours after polls closed, the centre-right was on course to win 158 of the 315 Senate seats up for grabs. In the lower house, Nexus predicted the centre-right would take 50.0 percent of the vote against 49.5 percent for Prodi. Under the terms of a highly controversial reform of the electoral system introduced by Berlusconi last year, the winner in the 630-seat lower house is automatically assigned 340 seats to enable it to control the chamber. The Nexus projection was at odds with the official count, which put Prodi out front with 52.5 percent of the vote after 40 percent of returns for the lower house had been counted. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=rigorousintuition>Rigorous Intuition</A> at: 4/10/06 5:41 pm

by **antiaristo** » Mon Apr 10, 2006 8:39 pm

The left must do as in France, and immediately. They must paralyse the country. Spain is slipping through her fingers. Remember what happened on march 11, 2004. Three days late. There is NOTHING they will not do. The workers must paralyse everything, or they will rue the day.

by **Gouda** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 8:27 am

Looking better now for Prodi vote & seat-wise, but still potential for a little push and shove. The latest news is that the ballots of Italians abroad have gone toward Prodi (not reflected in the CNN update below....) Of note and not surprising: Italians living in US and Israel voted Forza & Berlusconi's fascist coalition, while everywhere else, Canada, Europe, China, south seas...voted Prodi's Union. <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/04/11/italy.elections/index.html">edition.cnn.com/2006/WORL...index.html</a> <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Prodi victorious as deadlock looms Berlusconi demands recount in closest-ever Italian election Tuesday, April 11, 2006 Posted: 1050 GMT (1850 HKT) ROME, Italy (CNN) -- Italy was heading for political deadlock as a victory declared by opposition leader Romano Prodi in a knife-edge parliamentary election was undermined by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's demands for a recount. Though the final result hinges on ballots cast by Italians living overseas, Prodi's center-left coalition was Tuesday already claiming these had landed him a slim lead in the Senate. But Berlusconi's supporters were demanding a recount of lower house votes -- where Prodi won 340 of 630 seats with a tiny 25,000 vote margin -- raising the prospects of weeks of political turmoil. Even if Prodi succeeds in winning both houses -- which he needs to hold power -- with no clear majority and a yawning divide between parliament's two coalitions, forming a functional government could prove tricky. His majority in the upper house could be so slight that it would limit his ability to pass the reforms he has promised. The unprecendented division may force Italy's President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi to form a caretaker administration of civil servants, with the possibility of calling another election....<hr></blockquote>

by **Gouda** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 8:43 am

Really tight in the lower house: <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/italy/story/0,,1751421,00.html">www.guardian.co.uk/italy/...21,00.html</a> <blockquote>Quote:<hr>The centre-left won the lower house with 49.8% of the vote, compared to 49.7% for Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right coalition.<hr></blockquote> On edit:  Not official, but the four regions which hosted the new electronic voting (Liguria, Sardinia, Lazio and Puglia) went mostly to Berlusconi's coalition, taking the upper house in all 4 regions, and the lower house in 2 of the 4. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=gouda@rigorousintuition>Gouda</A> at: 4/11/06 6:49 am

by **Gouda** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 11:24 am

Whatta day to finally catch us a Don! <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/04/11/mafia.arrest.reut/index.html">edition.cnn.com/2006/WORL...index.html</a> <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Italy arrests Mafia supremo Provenzano has been on the run for four decades Tuesday, April 11, 2006 Posted: 1243 GMT (2043 HKT) PALERMO, Italy (Reuters) -- Bernardo Provenzano, the undisputed chief of the Sicilian Mafia who had been on the run for more than four decades, was arrested while hiding in a farmhouse near Corleone in Sicily, officials said. "Thank God. The hunt is finally over," said Palermo police chief Giuseppe Caruso Tuesday after agents nabbed Italy's most wanted man, scoring the state's biggest success against the Mafia in more than 13 years. Provenzano, known as the "Phantom of Corleone" after his native hill town, made famous by the Godfather films, has been running the Mafia since former "boss of bosses" Toto Riina was arrested in 1993. He was arrested when police swooped on a farmhouse in the countryside near Corleone. Provenzano, who put up no resistance and acknowledged his identity after first denying it, was flown by helicopter to a secret location in Palermo. President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi expressed his delight over the arrest to Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu, a statement from the presidential palace said.  The news bumped even national election results off the top spot on television news bulletins. Provenzano, 73, has been wanted since 1963 and was known as Italy's "super-fugitive". He had been sentenced in absentia to life in jail in connection with the Mafia's most notorious crimes of recent decades, including the killings in 1992 of top anti-Mafia magistrates Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino. The last picture police had of him was taken when he was 25. They had since been using computer depictions of how he might have aged, aided by information from turncoat Mafiosi. Police said they had found cryptic notes on small pieces of paper known as "pizzini" which Provenzano used to communicate with accomplices and his family. In Corleone, the news of his capture was met by disbelief. "People were shocked," said Dino Paternostro, an anti-Mafia journalist. "His myth of invincibility became part of our psyche. Most people believed he could never get caught." As a young man he was known as "Binnu the tractor" because of the way he mowed down enemies when a rising hitman of the Corleone clan. His ability to evade capture for so many years while remaining in Sicily had become legendary. Last year, Italy's national anti-Mafia prosecutor, Pietro Grasso, caused a storm by saying Provenzano had been protected by politicians and policemen. Police came close to arresting him many times but he managed to elude them, often at the last minute when the net was close.<hr></blockquote>

It's Tight and Nasty in Ohio... I mean Italia

It's Tight and Nasty in Ohio... I mean Italia

Re: It's Tight and Nasty in Ohio... I mean Italia

Re: It's Tight and Nasty in Ohio... I mean Italia

Re: It's Tight and Nasty in Ohio... I mean Italia

Re: It's Tight and Nasty in Ohio... I mean Italia

Re: Provenzano nabbed...today

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