Tangentopoli and the end of the First Republic
A Milan bribery investigation, "Clean Hands", exposes a system of political kickbacks and sweeps away the parties that had ruled Italy since 1945.
- Italy and Its Discontents, 1980–2001 — Paul Ginsborg, Allen Lane (2001)
- Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia and the Death of the First Italian Republic — Alexander Stille, Pantheon (1995)
It began on 17 February 1992 with the arrest of Mario Chiesa, a Socialist hospital administrator in Milan caught taking a bribe. The “Mani pulite” (Clean Hands) investigation led by Milan prosecutors uncovered a vast system of kickbacks on public contracts that financed the governing parties. Thousands of politicians and businessmen were investigated. The Christian Democrats and the Socialists, who had governed for decades, collapsed; Socialist leader Bettino Craxi fled to Tunisia, where he died in 2000. In 1994 the media entrepreneur Silvio Berlusconi founded Forza Italia and won the election, beginning a new era sometimes called the “Second Republic”.
- Italy and Its Discontents, 1980–2001 — Paul Ginsborg, Allen Lane (2001)
Why it matters today
Tangentopoli ("Bribesville") confirmed many Italians' cynicism about politicians, and the party system has never fully settled since. It opened the way for Silvio Berlusconi and, later, for successive waves of anti-establishment parties.