Bettino Craxi Biography
Bettino Craxi (1934 - 2000) was the longest-serving Italian prime minister of the post-war period (1983-87), holding the position with remarkable ease and presiding over a period of strong economic growth; but he is remembered as a tragic symbol of Italy's devastating corruption scandal and the man who effectively destroyed the Italian Socialist Party (PSI). Born in Milan, son of a Sicilian lawyer, Craxi dropped out of university to dedicate himself to politics. At just 18 years old he joined the PSI and became part of the regional executive committee of Milan. Craxi became party secretary in 1976 after a coup d'état organized against the secretary in office. An effective communicator, sensitive to the importance of the media, Craxi was able to convince the bourgeois electorate that the PSI was the party most in tune with the new generation of prominent entrepreneurs responsible for the "economic miracle" of the 1980s. His autocratic leadership style, known as “decisionism,” marked a refreshing change from endless political wrangling and ineffective policy implementation, the hallmarks of Christian Democratic governance. Party supporters were appointed to key leadership positions with the understanding that they would skim funds to benefit their political masters, and illegal bribes were demanded in exchange for almost all public contracts. The system, known as Tangentopoli, collapsed when a combination of growing political greed and economic recession made the burden unbearable for the businessmen who paid the bill. During its two administrations, the government managed to reduce inflation by cutting the automatic wage indexation system and negotiated a new concordat with the Vatican to replace the Lateran Pacts of 1929. At the same time, little was done to address the enormous budget deficit and nothing to advance political reform. While the mafia thrived largely unchecked in southern Italy, Craxi engaged in a series of offensives against the independence of the judiciary. Amid corruption charges in the Tangentopoli scandal, he fled to Tunisia, where he was sentenced in absentia to eight and a half years' imprisonment on July 29, 1994 for accepting $4,400,000 from Milan's corrupt Banco Ambrosiano for the Socialist Party's coffers. He died in Hammamet, Tunisia, in 2000 at the age of 65.
