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It’s advantage Berlusconi in Italy

Italy undoubtedly holds the record for political instability in Europe. In the 63 years since the end of World War II, the country has had 62 governments. The outgoing government of Romano Prodi lasted a mere 650 days — the second shortest tenure in the country’s post-war history.

Fifty million Italians go to the polls again next Sunday to elect a new Parliament and local bodies. They are fed up and bone weary of politics and a political class that is shallow, corrupt, inefficient and irresponsible. Except for Mr. Prodi who has decided to quit politics for good, the electorate is being served up the same old jaded faces.

Two years ago, almost to the day — on April 9 and 10 — Italian voters chose a squabbling coalition of 10 parties to lead them. Mr. Prodi won the election with the slimmest of margins — just 24,755 votes. And predictably, his improbable coalition, which ranged from Conservative Catholics on the right to the Communists and Radicals on the left, fell apart at the seams.

Italy’s richest man, media tycoon and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, now 72, but looking unnaturally young and stretched with a new facelift and hair transplant, is tipped to make a comeback. He and Gianfranco Fini, who inherited the former Fascist party, Allianza Nationale, have now merged to form a new party on the right — the PDL or People’s Party for Freedom. His party has also the support of the xenophobic and anti-European Northern League led by the unkempt and chain-smoking Umberto Bossi. Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of Italy’s wartime fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, and her Alternativo Sociale or AS party, have also thrown their weight behind Mr. Berlusconi. The latest polls show that Mr. Berlusconi has a comfortable lead of about six points over his closest rival Walter Veltroni of the Democratic Party (PD).

Mr. Berlusconi is the only Prime Minister in Italy’s post-war history who has served a full term. His two terms (he has twice been PM) were riddled with cronyism and conflicts of interest. He has been accused of promoting legislation protecting his own economic interests. The influential British weekly, The Economic, described him as being “unfit to govern.” And yet, Italian society appears to have reached such a nadir of cynicism, corruption and fatalism that voters seem prepared to put him back in office.

Remaining true to his image of a crude gaffer, Mr. Berlusconi has continued to make remarks that many find unpalatable, even offensive. Recently he called on foreign investors to come to Italy because the country had “beautiful secretaries.” More recently, he launched a broadside against Italian cartoonists who tend to portray him as a dwarf wearing high heels. “I am taller than Putin and Sarkozy, I’m tall like Prodi,” he said. “I’m 1.71 metres [five feet, six inches] tall. I don’t understand why all the caricaturists portray me as a dwarf whereas the others are allowed a normal height,” he told an election rally in the north. Mr. Berlusconi, who owns three of Italy’s seven national television stations, has launched an unprecedented media blitz which is creating major difficulties for Mr. Veltroni, his main rival.

The underdog is clearly Mr. Veltroni, who at 52 is 20 years younger than Mr. Berlusconi. The highly successful former mayor of Rome, who continues to remain the country’s most popular politician, decided to break loose of coalition politics and form a separate party, the PD. He has had to fight off repeated accusations by Mr. Berlusconi that he is a closet communist. Mr. Veltroni received a boost on Thursday from American film actor George Clooney who was promoting his latest movie in Rome and likened him to the U.S. Democratic probable, Barack Obama. A movie buff and one-time journalist who created the Rome film festival in 2006 to wide acclaim, Mr. Veltroni was the city’s mayor for seven years until he resigned to run in the elections. He has criss-crossed the nation in a bus convoy emulating the U.S. Republican presidential candidate, John McCain’s Straight Talk Express.

Others in the fray include the usual culprits — The Rainbow Coalition led by the veteran Communist politician Fausto Bertinotti (the coalition includes his Refounded Communists, the Greens and the Democratic Left), the Party of Italian Values led by the former anti-corruption judge Antonio di Pietro, and the Radical Party led by the controversial die-hard Marco Panella. In the last poll, there were 155 political parties in the fray. The number has come down but the list of parties remains interminably long.

The electoral law is largely responsible for the coalition governments that have come and gone with astounding regularity. Italy has a bicameral system with the Senate and the Lower House enjoying identical rights with the exception that Senators are elected by a slightly different system of regional voters. There are also five Senators for Life (three former Presidents and two prominent members of society). The legislators are elected by a system of proportional representation through 26 constituencies. Since 2001, Italians residing abroad have been electing 12 MPs through a special constituency. Parties need at least 10 per cent of the vote to enter Parliament. The largest party is given supplementary seats. Attempts to hold a referendum to change the electoral law before holding elections failed and Italy is once again headed for predictable political chaos.

Whoever wins will have his job cut out for him. The Italian economy, once the fifth largest in the world, has been overtaken by Spain in terms of per capita income. The economy is growing at a dismal 0.7 per cent a year (two years ago, it registered zero growth) as against 6 per cent in the 1960s and 2 per cent in the 1990s. Inflation is at its highest in 10 years and successive governments have been plagued by cronyism, chronic and massive fiscal evasion, corruption and a huge and inefficient bureaucracy.

These past weeks the campaign has heated up. And although Mr. Berlusconi has not hesitated to hurl abuses, Mr. Veltroni has steered clear of any invective. Last Thursday, the flamboyant Mr. Berlusconi urged thousands of supporters outside Rome’s Coliseum to “go and convert people!” ahead of Sunday-Monday’s vote. “It’s important, you have missionary work to do towards all the undecided voters. You are the missionaries of truth and freedom,” said the self-made billionaire at his closing rally. Mr. Berlusconi accused Mr. Veltroni of having run “a campaign of lies,” adding the Democratic Party, formed in October, was only the latest incarnation of the Italian Communist Party. “But men never change, it’s the same old communist nomenclature, the same ideology,” Mr. Berlusconi said adding: “Truth doesn’t exist for the left.”

Mr. Berlusconi’s PDL faces a tight result in the Senate, where the vote is determined by region. Ironically, the electoral law pushed through by Mr. Berlusconi just months before the 2006 polls was expressly designed to hobble the expected Prodi government in the Upper House, observers said. As he has aged, the flamboyant former Prime Minister has sought to cultivate a “father of the nation” image, while Mr. Veltroni is seeking to rejuvenate the political class and double the number of women in Parliament. The drive has spurred an unprecedented number of up-and-coming women to run in the elections to replace a Parliament that is 84 per cent male.

Political observers in Rome have commented on a likely high rate of abstention. “Italians are so fed up, so disgruntled with our dishonest and irresponsible political classes that it is likely they will just abstain from voting. This country has been able to function despite its governments. Italians have become most adroit at steering clear of the state. But one cannot forever do without the state. We have reached a breaking point. We need good governance. But it looks like we are again happy to forgive Silvio Berlusconi for his past misdeeds and pop him back into power. That for Italy would be a real tragedy. In Walter Vetroni at least we have a younger, different alternative. But it seems the Italians prefer the known devil,” said sociologist Vincenzo Renzi.

The most scathing comment came from the world renowned photographer, Oliviero Toscano (he does the Benetton ads), who accused his countrymen of having “plumbed the depths of vulgarity.”

With Mr. Vetroni minding his “ps” and “qs,” refraining from directly attacking Mr. Berlusconi, there are hints that a “grand coalition” between the forces of the right and the centre-right may be on the cards. Howsoever unsatisfactory such a solution, it could at least give Italy a semblance of stability it so badly needs.

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