No place for Berlusconi in list of life senators

ROME: Silvio Berlusconi’s allies reacted angrily on Friday after Italian President Giorgio Napolitano left the center-right leader, who risks being ejected from Parliament after a tax fraud conviction, off a list of new lifetime senators.
Napolitano had been pressed by members of Berlusconi’s People of Liberty party (PDL) to grant their leader the honor bestowed on former heads of state and distinguished personalities in the fields of arts and sciences.
But in a move that sends a clear political message to Berlusconi that he will receive no special treatment, Napolitano kept him off a list of four life senators named just a week before voting starts on whether to strip Berlusconi of his parliamentary seat under a law passed last year.
The appointees enjoy the full powers and privileges of being a lawmaker for life — including some legal immunity — meaning he could continue to wield influence after being found guilty and sentenced to four years of house arrest or public service that was commuted to one year.
The parliamentary committee begins its deliberations on Sept. 9 but the decision has to be approved by a vote in the full chamber.
Berlusconi’s allies have threatened to bring down the government they support along with Prime Minister Enrico Letta's center-left Democratic Party if the PD votes to oust him, as it has said it will.
Friday’s nominees were architect Renzo Piano, one of the creators of the futuristic Pompidou Centre in Paris and the Shard skyscraper in London, and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Carlo Rubbia.
Claudio Abbado, former director of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, was another of the nominees along with a 50-year-old specialist in stem cell research, Elena Cattaneo.

Meanwhile, a survey conducted by the Swg institute predicted victory for Berlusconi’s party in a general election even though the former prime minister has been convicted for tax fraud and remains entangled in a string of legal scandals.
The survey gave Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PDL) party 27.9 percent, the center-left Democratic Party (PD) 24 percent and the anti-establishment Five Star Movement 20.1 percent.