Italian Election '94: 'Talking statues' have last word with Italy's voters

'ITALIANS, I am as confused as you are by all this chaos,' says the Babuino, one of Rome's best- known 'talking statues'.

And well he might be, judging from other comments stuck on the wall around his curious reclining figure near the Piazza di Spagna in which he supposedly exhorts Romans to vote - or not to vote - right, left, neo-fascists, former Communists and Republicans. Or, in the customary irreverent spirit of this centuries-old tradition - political graffiti have been written on placards and hung around the necks of the statues since ancient times - not to believe a word the scoundrels say.

The final day of the campaign arrived with many Italians as bewildered and undecided as the Babuino. The mud-slinging of the past weeks spawned a crop of libel actions. The Minister for Electoral Reform, Leopoldo Elia, explained how to mark the voting slips for fear that many voters, bemused by the new system, would get it wrong and invalidate their votes.

Party leaders were making their final appeals. In a last-minute attempt to create a semblance of harmony, the media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi and representatives of his right-wing allies sat for the first time around the same table to declare that more united than divided them, and to sympathise with Mr Berlusconi's Forza Italia over Wednesday's police visit to its headquarters.

But it may well be too little and too late. And it was noticeable that Umberto Bossi, leader of the Northern League, who has attacked Mr Berlusconi more ferociously than he did any left-wing adversary, was not there.

Today, which is being called the last day of the First Republic, Italians will be left in peace to meditate on their choice before voting tomorrow and Monday. If anyone imagined that a new, clean, reformed and idealistic political class would be born from the corruption scandals and the elections, they are likely to be disappointed. A research institute, Eurispes, has concluded that after two years of 'mass consent' to the corruption investigations, the country has divided into 'five Italies', or five different attitudes, only two of which are desirable.

It calls the first type of Italian the 'incorrigible', the person who thinks that the revolution only affects the political class and that the old ways will continue. He (or she) continues to demand or pay bribes, dodge taxes, pull strings, buy qualifications and cheat on insurance.

The second is the 'profiteer', particularly professional people or shopkeepers, notorious tax-dodgers who will declare loudly they want to get back what was stolen from them by the old regime. 'They propose anti-tax revolts with revolutionary slogans, but in effect it just hides the same old tax evasion,' Eurispes said. He says he will only vote for 'clean' people but in secret will vote for survivors of the old regime too.

Then there is the 'adaptable' person who follows the fashion for puritanism but in fact is likely to vote either for repentant members of the old political class or new people who are supposedly 'clean' but will actually carry on the old traditions. The 'committed' person, on the other hand, will only vote for people who represent genuine renewal. He will change his own ways, paying the social contributions (usually dodged) for the char lady and refusing to grease palms.

Finally there is the 'cathartic' type who will throw coins (a great insult) and shout 'thief, thief' at corrupt politicians. He or she is inclined to vote for extreme right- or left-wing parties but may even abstain from voting completely.

(Photograph omitted)