Anti-immigrant party to win key Italy cabinet posts

By Phil Stewart

ROME (Reuters) - Italy's anti-immigrant Northern League party says it will take key posts in prime minister-elect Silvio Berlusconi's cabinet, positioning it to advance a crackdown on foreign illegals it blames for violent crime.

The head of the Northern League, which surprised pundits by grabbing 8 percent of the vote in last week's polls, said in comments published on Monday that its cabinet posts will include interior minister, reforms minister and agriculture minister.

Berlusconi said on Monday his cabinet list was not yet finalized, and warned there would be some surprises. The cabinet will have to be approved by President Giorgio Napolitano.

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 Mohammad.

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, defense of agriculture -- these are the reasons why people voted for us," 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!"

CITIZEN DEFENCE GROUPS