IN THESE times of what Pope Benedict XVI calls moral “relativism”, centre-right Italian deputy Giorgio Stracquadanio yesterday struck a new note when he suggested that it was only “normal” that politicians would prostitute themselves in order to advance their careers.
In an interview with journalist and writer Klaus Davi, the bald Mr Stracquadanio, an outspoken supporter of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, said: “Everyone uses what they’ve got to promote their career . . . even their body. That’s absolutely legitimate . . . So, even if a deputy ‘outed’ his or herself and admitted they had sold themselves for an electoral candidacy, that wouldn’t be reason enough for them to resign their seat . . . ”
Lest we had failed to get the point, Mr Stracquadanio later re-inforced it when speaking to Repubblica TV: “The way of the world since time began is that people use their bodies in politics. I see it as normal that men and women use their good looks to achieve their ends.”
Mr Stracquadanio was replying to accusations made last week by centre-right opponent, deputy Angela Napoli (a supporter of the speaker of the lower house, Gianfranco Fini), who has been very critical of Mr Berlusconi.
Ms Napoli had provoked a major row by saying, again in an interview with Klaus Davi, she “could not exclude that various senators and deputies were elected thanks to prostituting themselves”. Needless to say, Mr Stracquadanio’s words did not pass unnoticed. Not only centre-left opponents but also his centre-right colleagues were quick to denounce him.
A senior Partito Democratico (PD) figure, Senator Anna Finocchiaro, called his comments “disgusting” while party colleague Barbara Saltamartini accused him of undermining women politicians.
Mr Stracquadanio (50), an adviser to minister of education Maria Stella Gelmini, is not new to polemics.
An outspoken supporter of Mr Berlusconi, he interrupted a July government news conference to shout at a journalist from the left-wing daily L’Unità that she was “talking crap”.
His observations about prostitution in politics come after a year in which Italian politics has been rocked by a series of sex scandals.
In the most prominent of these, it was alleged that Mr Berlusconi had organised a series of parties-cum-orgies involving call girls in his private residences in Sardinia and Rome.