A FORMER topless model and beauty queen yesterday started work as the equal opportunities minister in the Italian cabinet.
Mara Carfagna, 33, turned to politics after a television career, following her coming sixth in the 1997 Miss Italy beauty contest.
She has also posed topless and seminaked for photo shoots, but has always underlined her family values and stress
ed none of the pictures "were erotic".
Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister, managed to keep his election pledge of naming at least four women ministers, weeks after dismissing Spain's women-majority cabinet as "too pink" and declaring it was hard to find qualified women in Italian politics.
The other women were Stefania Prestigiacomo in the environment portfolio, Maria Stella Gelmini for education and Giorgia Meloni as youth minister.
Last year, Mr Berlusconi was publicly ridiculed by his wife after he told Ms Carfagna at an awards dinner that if he wasn't married he would "gladly marry" her. His outraged wife retaliated by sending a letter to a national newspaper demanding that he apologise for embarrassing her, which he duly did.
Ms Carfagna has made no secret of her dislike of gays and lesbians, saying they are "constitutionally sterile" and that "to love means to be able to procreate".
Vittoria Franco, a centre-left senator now in opposition, said: "The women ministers in Berlusconi's government are truly few – four out of 21 – so less than a fifth. There are four in posts that are traditionally more feminine. It's a clear backwards step on the equal-opportunities front."
Mr Berlusconi's cabinet is the most right-wing since the end of the Second World War. Eight of the ministers are from the anti-immigration Northern League and the National Alliance, the remnants of the Fascist Party. The key post of interior minister, with a remit to resolve the growing illegal immigration crisis, went to Roberto Maroni, a Northern League MP. Umberto Bossi, the outspoken leader of the league who has campaigned for more devolution in the north, was named reform minister.
Roberto Calderoli, who as a minister in 2006 provoked riots in Libya with his T-shirt showing a Danish cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad, will be in charge of slashing red tape as minister of "legislative simplification".
The defence minister's job went to the firebrand National Alliance MP Ignazio La Russo, whose father was captured by British troops at El Alamein during the Second World War.
Mr Berlusconi, 71, a billionaire media tycoon, swept to victory in last month's general election, routing his centre-left opponent Walter Veltroni. Crucial in the win was the swing to the Northern League, who doubled their seats to 60 as immigration, crime and security became key elements in the election.
Mr Berlusconi's government is composed of 12 full ministers and nine ministers without portfolio. This will be the third time that he has led the Italian government. The first was a brief executive following the 1996 elections and the second his full-term executive from 2001 to 2006, Italy's longest-serving government for 60 years. Professor James Walston, a British lecturer on Italian politics at the American University in Rome, said: "It is very much a right-wing government but, in essence, it's no real surprise. We knew he would appease the Northern League by giving them key cabinet posts … but he has also given important jobs to the National Alliance.
"The Lega is a very radical anti-immigration party, while the National Alliance, although it claims to have buried its fascist past, still has members wearing black shirts. It's a very conservative cabinet, which certainly has its thuggish elements. What it shows is how the Right is beginning a return across Europe."
Mr Berlusconi said yesterday: "We're in a honeymoon period." He added that he intended to pick up from where he left off in 2006, when he narrowly failed to be re-elected.
"We have 100 days to avoid disappointing those who put their faith in us, and five years to change and modernise this country," he was quoted as saying by the newspaper La Stampa.
The full article contains 692 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
