Populist surge leaves Italy in limbo
No clear-cut winner leaves country in political deadlock
A surge for populist and farright parties in Italy’s general election left the country in political deadlock on Monday with a hung parliament likely after a campaign dominated by anger against immigration.
With the majority of ballots from Sunday’s vote counted, the eurosceptic League led by Matteo Salvini was leading the dominant right-wing coalition with 37 percent of the vote.
Salvini, who has promised to shut down Roma camps, deport hundreds of thousands of migrants, said Monday he had the “right and duty” to govern Italy.
The League is closing in on 18 percent, overtaking the pre-election coalition leader and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (Go Italy) party, which has collapsed to 14 percent.
“Italians have chosen to take back control of the country from the insecurity and precariousness put in place by [centerleft Democratic Party leader Matteo] Renzi,” Salvini told a press conference.
However much depends on the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S), which has drawn support from Italians fed up with traditional parties and a lack of economic opportunity and finished second with 32 percent.
“Everything will change,” read the front page of Il Fatto Quotidiano, which like the M5S has railed against what it sees as the “corrupt” old parties.
But much depends on what leader Luigi Di Maio does next.
“It’s a great day, despite the rain,” said Di Maio to reporters on Monday morning. “Indescribable.”
According to polling company YouTrend, the M5S is on for 231 seats in the lower house Chamber of Deputies and 115 in the upper house Senate, meaning that it could form a majority with either one of the League, Forza Italia and the Democratic Party (PD), which had a disastrous night.
PD leader Matteo Renzi looks doomed after his party dropped to 19 percent of the vote, which according to YouTrend could lead to a loss of a third of their seats in the Chamber and half in the Senate.
The M5S has always refused to form coalitions with other parties but having become the biggest single party, it has the chance to lead the country for the first time, and Di Maio has already moved to soften the fiery image given by party founder Beppe Grillo.
However given its heated rivalry with the PD and Berlusconi, its most likely ally looks to be the eurosceptic League, a bizarre situation for Avellinoborn Di Maio to be faced with given the League and Salvini’s roots in the old secessionist, anti-southern Northern League.
Matteo Ricci, former vice president of the PD and the party’s current mayor of Pesaro, insisted on state broadcaster Rai that there was no chance of the PD helping the M5S forming a government.
“The only ally with whom the M5S can form a government is Matteo Salvini, everyone knows it, that’s the only option for them with this parliament,” Ricci said.
Silvio Berlusconi, the billionaire media mogul who has dominated Italian politics for more than two decades, suffered a humiliating setback in Sunday’s election by coming second to the far-right League party in an alliance he expected to dominate.
The alliance is set to win the most votes but fall short of an overall majority and Berlusconi’s promise to rein in populist forces rings hollow after a surge in support from voters disillusioned with traditional politics.
“The Berlusconi ‘miracle’ has failed,” the left-wing daily La Repubblica decreed on Monday.
The result opens the prospect of Berlusconi playing second fiddle to League leader Matteo Salvini.
Despite sex scandals, serial gaffes and legal woes, the flamboyant tycoon had made an astonishing return from political oblivion to the political frontline aged 81.
Although barred from public office owing to a tax fraud conviction, Berlusconi had put forward his loyal former protégé, European Parliament President Antonio Tajani, as his prime ministerial nominee if he won the vote.
But that prospect now no longer appears feasible after his party’s poor showing, picking up just 14.5 percent with two-thirds of votes counted, down on the roughly 18 percent predicted pre-election.
While Berlusconi largely avoided the big campaign rallies and only appeared once with his coalition allies in the run-up to the vote, he was a constant figure on television, radio and in newspapers, a number of which he owns through his Fininvest empire.
The one-time cruise ship crooner who has served as prime minister three times and once owned AC Milan football club, has had a tumultuous love affair with Italian politics, clinching his first election victory in 1994.
With his oiled-back hair and winning smile, he has ruled Italy for more than nine years in total.
He became renowned around the world for his buffoonish gaffes and a colorful private life epitomized by his notorious “bunga bunga” sex parties.
Today his smile is noticeably a little frozen, and the facelifts and make-up have left the veteran leader somewhat transformed.
But his sense of humor is still intact.
“I’m like a good wine, with age, I only improve, now I’m perfect,” he tweeted recently.
Football glory
Berlusconi was born in 1936 in Milan to a bank employee father and a housewife mother who always staunchly defended her son’s virtues.
The young Berlusconi was a born entertainer.
A huge fan of Nat King Cole, he played the double bass and entertained club audiences with jokes during breaks from studying law.
He worked briefly as a cruise ship singer before launching a lucrative career in the booming construction sector and then expanding to set up three national television channels and buy Italian football club AC Milan, which he went on to sell in 2017.
Berlusconi’s political success has been linked to his football glory. But it is also closely entwined with the power of his broadcasting and publishing empire.
His first stint as prime minister lasted from 1994-96. In 2001, he was elected again after a campaign which included sending a book boasting of his achievements to 15 million Italian homes.
He remained in power until 2006 – the longest premiership in the history of post-war Italy – and as a divided left floundered, he was voted back in for a third time in 2008.
In cross hairs of the law
But his premiership ended in 2011 in a blaze of sex scandals and fears that Italy was on the brink of a Greek-style financial implosion.
The twice-divorced Berlusconi was forced out of parliament in 2013 after his conviction for corporate tax fraud was upheld by Italy’s highest court.
His influence waned quickly after that.
In 2013, he was also sentenced to seven years for paying for sex with an underage 17-year-old prostitute Karima El-Mahroug, known as “Ruby the Heart Stealer,” and for abusing his powers to get her off theft charges, pretending she was the niece of then Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.
The Ruby conviction was eventually overturned by an appeal court. Not entirely off the hook though, Berlusconi now faces trial over allegations he bought Ruby and other women’s silence with more than 10 million euros ($12.32 million) worth of gifts including houses and holidays.
Obama gaffe
In 2013, the former leader gained notoriety for his off-color jokes and diplomatic gaffes, likening German politician Martin Schulz to a Nazi, and describing former US president Barack Obama as “suntanned.”
The ageing politician has also grappled with health issues in recent years, undergoing open heart surgery in 2016.
When asked about his eventual successor though, he responded: “It’s not easy to find a genius, but as I’ll live to be 120, I will find one.”