When jumping political ships backfires

MEDIA OUTLETS around the world    focused on Thursday, October 24 on the latest scandal implicating former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his ex-colaborator Valter Lavítola whose name is well known to Panama’s ruling elite.

The former senator Sergio De Gregorio has confessed to receiving a bribe of three million euros ( about 4.1 million) from Berlusconi to quit his party at a crucial moment of Italian politics .

Radio and television programs and print media are alive with comment on the “jumping ship”revelations made in court of yet another major corruption scandal involving the man who liked to call himself "the best prime minister of Italy," and who received red carpet treatment in Panama.
After the 2006 elections , Silvio Berlusconi lost his parliamentary majority and was replaced by Romano Prodi. Two years later, Prodi lost a vote of confidence .
The beneficiary of the political move was Silvio Berlusconi , who managed to enrol a handful of senators and representatives and to return to power in 2008 .
The then Senator De Gregorio was one of the " defectors " whose party change precipitated the fall of Prodi and Berlusconi 's return . On Wednesday, in Naples , he confessed that he was bribed to change his support. He apologized to his former teammate and Prodi , and said he had freed his conscience and removed a great burden.
The messenger who delivered the payment to De Gregorio was Valter Lavítola. A later messenger in business deals betweenItalian companies and Panama. The Naples ,Judge, Amelia Spring , hearing the admission of guilt of the ex-senador , ordered that both Berlusconi and Lavítola must face the serious charges that point to the " sale" of a senator .

De Gregorio is serving 20 months in prison . Lavítola is already serving a sentence on two counts , and awaiting another half dozen separate criminal proceedings .
One of them , which has nothing to do with the revelations y in the courts of Naples is related to international bribery, based on his dealings with the government of Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli reports La Prensa.