Berlusconi has exploited death for political purposes

According to Ezio Mauro, chief editor of the left-liberal daily La Repubblica, the end of coma patient Eluana Englaro's life is the beginning of a long ordeal for Italy. He criticises Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for undermining the constitution with his intervention: "It is pathetic to abuse death for political ends. It is a disgrace to have dragged the president [Giorgio Napolitano] onto the terrain of life and death because he fulfilled his duty as guardian of the constitution. It is humiliating to have to witness the decline of our politics. It is disturbing to have to discover the true soul of the Right, cruel and savage in its craving for absolute power, ignoring all sense of state, disrespectful of the institutions, with the exception of parliamentary president Gianfranco Fini, who made a point of distancing himself from the whole affair. With the instrumentalisation of a national and family tragedy, with the dark echo of those who would turn death into politics, the most dangerous phase for the fate of the republic in Italy's recent history began yesterday."

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