That stench in Italy is a stagnant political system.

Byline: Kevin Cape' For The Register-Guard

NAPLES - On a 60 degree winter day, with a sky that seemed to vie with the sea in azure brilliance, I thought I had caught a glimpse of paradise. I thought I remembered the old saying, "See Naples and die."

From the vantage point of a seafront balcony, I could make out Capri, beloved retreat of Roman emperors and rich latter-day dowagers, while little boats bounced playfully on the placid sea.

This vision of Naples, where I lived long ago, was comforting after the malodorous ride from the airport into the city. Thirty years ago, I sometimes used to see neat little stacks of garbage in light green bags, to be collected domani (tomorrow), when the schedule really said oggi (today).

Compared to the visual and olfactory pollution of today's garbage, the streets in those days looked positively Swiss in their cleanliness.

"It's actually better this week than it was two weeks ago," a relentlessly optimistic Neapolitan said to me, first with a smile, then a sigh.

Naples' garbage crisis has become a pungent metaphor for a national political and economic mess that needs to be cleaned up as badly as the streets of this southern city. For weeks, Neapolitan garbage has decayed in the open air, mostly due to the fact that local landfills have been filled to capacity. And no government agency, whether regional or national, has bothered to find a solution.

In fact, the garbage of Naples is profoundly intertwined with the immobilismo of a political caste that exists more to defend its own privileges than to govern a modern industrial country.

The head of Italy's national business organization has estimated that Italian politicians cost the country's taxpayers as much as those of Britain, Germany and France combined - which is not surprising, if you consider that the now-defunct government of Premier Romano Prodi counted 100 different ministers and deputy ministers.

It's partly the result of an electoral system that has encouraged small parties - Prodi's government was kept in office by no fewer than 13. When Prodi's minister of justice resigned last month (due to corruption charges) the government fell, too, which will lead sooner or later to new elections.

But elections will solve nothing, as the only viable alternative is Silvio Berlusconi. Already twice prime minister, he has a rather meager record of accomplishments, except that as Italy's richest man. His time in office allowed him to become even richer. Thus, the exercise of parliamentary democracy has become sadly irrelevant to the country's future.

The classic optimistic argument about Italy - and one I used to hold - was that governments in power mattered less here than elsewhere, as Italians showed a remarkable capacity to govern themselves without reference to Rome. A significant part of the country's gross domestic product was produced illegally, from bakery products to small buses. All of this was tolerated by authorities.

Yet in those days, much of the national economy was underpinned by remarkable small to medium-sized family companies in the north, which were able to innovate fast enough to remain competitive worldwide. The difficulty today is that many of them are in medium-technology industries that face head-on competition from Asia.

Serious policies are needed now to cut Italy's horrendously complex bureaucratic red tape, both to encourage local companies and to attract foreign investment. One telling statistic is that last year, for example, France (which has its own problems with cumbersome bureaucracy) attracted $123 billion in foreign investment, while Italy attracted only $28 billion.

The garbage in Naples' streets is also a graphic indicator of two other problems.

One is the lack of infrastructure planning and execution. All Naples area garbage dumps simply closed; no new ones opened. The other is that the refuse heaps have been compounded by the involvement of the local Mafia, the Camorra, which found that garbage was nearly as profitable - and a lot less risky - than such traditional pursuits as running drugs.

My friends here used to be irritated whenever commentators would compare Italy to a comic opera, but that is what came to mind when I watched the Prodi government fall: A senator, attacked by cries of "traitor!" from his colleagues, suddenly fainted and had to be rushed out of the Senate on a stretcher. Yet, exasperated Neapolitans have ceased to laugh.

Eugene native Kevin Cape is a writer and teacher living in Paris.