Former Italian prime minister Bettino Craxi, who died in Tunisia on January 19th, aged 65, leaves behind a bitterly controversial legacy. A lifelong Socialist, Bettino Craxi died in self-imposed exile in his summer house in Hammamet, Tunisia. He had fled Italy in May 1994 in order to avoid standing trial on charges regarding illicit party financing.
In his absence, Bettino Craxi was convicted on multiple corruption charges and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment within the ambit of the infamous Tangentopoli (Bribesville) investigations of the early 1990s.
He had become a much-loathed figure who more than anyone else symbolised the endemic corruption in post-war Italian politics. In a famous parliamentary address in July 1992 he admitted receiving illicit party financing but defended himself by claiming that this was merely standard party management practice of the day.
That speech prompted an angry crowd to gather outside his central Rome hotel-residence. He needed police protection to reach his car whilst the furious crowd waved 1,000 lira notes in his face, shouting "thief" and "robber".
When a public debate raged two months ago concerning allowing Bettino Craxi return to Italy on humanitarian grounds, it was the former Tangentopoli investigator Antonio Di Pietro, who pointed out that the case concerned more than mere illegal party financing a la Helmut Kohl. According to Di Pietro, at least $40 million found its way into Swiss bank accounts held on behalf of Bettino Craxi. During his six-year exile, he had always insisted that he would return to Italy only as a "free man", arguing that he had been made a scapegoat and had been unjustly driven from his country by a political witch hunt.
Notwithstanding his involvement in Tangentopoli, however, Bettino Craxi was a significant figure in post-war Italian politics. Born on February 24th, 1934, he first assumed Socialist Party office in 1957 at the age of 23, going on to take over the party leadership in 1976.
As Socialist leader, he moved the party away from the ideological dominance of the Italian Communist Party, definitively establishing its middle ground credentials by gestures such as the replacement of the communist "hammer and sickle" party motif with a red carnation. This policy reaped huge rewards, seeing the Socialist Party's share of the national vote rise to 11.4 per cent, enabling him to become Italy's first Socialist prime minister in August 1983.
As prime minister, his authorative strong-man tactics proved effective.
Not only did he lead the longest serving government in postwar history (1983-1987) but he also took some bold and pragmatic initiatives. The suspension of the scala mobile (the automatic wage index); the agreement to the installation of NATO nuclear-tipped Cruise missiles in Sicily; a stand-off with US President Ronald Reagan over Arab terrorist Abu Abbas, and the renegotiation of the Concordat with the Vatican, all bore witness to his political genius and ability as a statesman.
However, Bettino Craxi will be best remembered not for any of the above but rather for his involvement in "Bribesville".
He is survived by his wife, Anna, his son "Bobo" and his daughter, Stefania.
Bettino Craxi: born 1934; died January, 2000