Anti-immigrant party expects key Cabinet post

Italy's anti-immigrant Northern League party says it expects key posts in Prime Minister-elect Silvio Berlusconi's Cabinet that would position it to pursue a crackdown on foreign illegals it blames for violent crime.

But Mr Berlusconi said his Cabinet list was not yet finalised, and warned there would be some surprises. The Cabinet will have to be approved by President Giorgio Napolitano.

"We are speaking to everyone, yesterday I heard the League's requests but nothing has been decided," Mr Berlusconi said.

The head of the Northern League, which surprised pundits by grabbing eight per cent of the vote in last week's polls, said in comments published yesterday that its Cabinet posts will include Interior Minister, Reforms Minister and Agriculture Minister.

Northern League leader Umberto Bossi said the post of Deputy Prime Minister would go to League member Roberto Calderoli, who has outraged Muslims with past antics such as wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with Danish cartoons showing the Prophet Mohammed.

He also promoted a "pig day" protest in a Muslim community last year, threatening to walk a pet pig where a new mosque was going to be built. Muslims do not eat pork and consider pigs and their meat too filthy to touch.

"Reforms, security, defence of agriculture - these are the reasons why people voted for us," Mr Bossi was quoted as saying in La Stampa newspaper. He said he himself would become Reforms Minister in the new government.

The Northern League, which critics accuse of racism, doubled its support in the general election, rallying voters on issues such as crime and immigration. One of its campaign posters featured a Native American with the slogan: "They were subjected to immigration and now they live on reserves!" Two rapes over the weekend involving foreign victims and alleged perpetrators have pushed crime and illegal immigration to the top of Italy's political agenda as Mr Berlusconi prepares to return for a third stint as Prime Minister.

Mr Berlusconi, whose last term in power ended in 2006, has already signalled a crackdown on illegal immigrants who commit crimes, calling them "the army of evil" the day after his election. Appointing a Northern League Interior Minister would underline that immigration is a priority.

In a statement yesterday Mr Berlusconi said two of his government's first priorities would be security and "fiscal federalism", another key campaign point for the League which wants Italy's rich north to be able to spend more of its tax revenues locally, rather than send it to Rome.

The League's Roberto Maroni, who Mr Bossi said would become Interior Minister, yesterday applauded the idea of citizens' defence groups to help prevent crime while brushing off concerns about them taking the law into their own hands.

He said Italy was in the grip of a crime wave "linked to immigration, usually illegal".