Italy’s Berlusconi could be eyeing comeback as controversial past looms

After decades of fighting for political power and an increasing share of Italy’s media influence, Silvio Berlusconi, the billionaire tycoon and four-time prime minister, is now fighting to keep his place at the table.

The last few years have not been kind to Berlusconi, who will be 82 years old on September 29. Barred from holding political office because of legal problems, Berlusconi managed to have the ban lifted just in time to spark speculation that with a strong showing in March’s general election he might have a chance at one more political comeback.

Instead, the vote handed him a stinging defeat: his Forza Italia party finished a weak fourth, earning just 14 percent of the vote and finishing behind populist, anti-immigrant League, which had been a junior partner in the governments Berlusconi led. Since then, his party’s support levels have dipped to as low as 6 percent in some polls, lower than at any other time since the flashy mogul burst onto the political scene 25 years ago.

But Berlusconi has not faded away. Over the last weeks, Berlusconi has held high-profile strategy meetings with Matteo Salvini, the head of the League and Italy’s minister of the interior, setting off rumors that the two might join forces next year if the League decides to ditch the anti-establishment FiveStar Movement.

The League and the Five-Star Movement, often at odds with each other, are uneasy partners in the government led by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte.

Meanwhile, the Five-Star Movement, which opposed Salvini’s plan to include Forza Italia as a partner in the current government, has had to beat back stories saying the Five-Star Movement’s proposal to limit government ad buys could be aimed at helping Berlusconi’s media companies.

The party says it wants to buy ads only with media uncritical of the government, which would favor a group of media companies including Mediaset, the company Berlusconi controls, which has not been overly critical of the government.

The logic is that if the Conte government collapsed, the FiveStar Movement, the largest party in parliament, could try to go it alone with help from some smaller parties, including Forza Italia.

There has even been some speculation that Forza Italia could work out a cooperation deal with the center-left Democratic Party, which held the reins of power until Conte was installed in June, as a kind of counter-balance to the LeagueFive-Star Movement coalition.

Political scientists and other analysts said none of those scenarios were particularly likely, although Flavio Chiapponi, a political scientist at the University of Pavia, said that the future could see Forza Italia playing what he called “an informal support role” for a larger party in parliament in return for certain concessions. “There’s a big debate about how things could play out going forward,” Chiapponi told Xinhua. “This government will at least hold together until the 2019 budget is finalized in the next few weeks. After that, it is not clear what could happen, though it’s difficult to imagine Forza Italia will be a major protagonist.”