Berlusconi eyes political resurrection, unhindered by sex scandals
ROME: In a post-Harvey Weinstein world, logic would dictate that Silvio Berlusconi, who hosted wild parties with young women and brags about his sexual prowess, would not have a ghost of a chance at political resurrection.
But logic and Italian politics have never been synonymous.
On Monday, the four-time former prime minister’s right-wing bloc relished a huge political victory in regional elections in Sicily. Silvio, as his die-hard adoring acolytes simply call him, was back in the driver’s seat.
“Berlusconi is Alive,” was the headline in La Verita, a rightwing newspaper, on Tuesday.
The mainstream Corriere della Sera ran a cartoon showing Berlusconi, wrapped in a burial shroud, emerging from a tomb like Lazarus in the New Testament.
The regional Sicilian ballot, in which Berlusconi’s candidate, Nello Musumeci, won big, was seen as a dry run for nationwide elections due before May.
As the 81-year- old media tycoon campaigned tirelessly for Musumeci, betting that a victory in Sicily would be the springboard for a national return to power of the centre-right, the ex-premier’s sex scandals were no issue.
“Unfortunately, this is a country where if one violates rules on sexual ethics, he is admired,” said Anna Foa, a history professor who is on a team of women who write a monthly edition on women’s issues of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano.
Earlier this month, British Defence Secretary Michael Fallon resigned after admitting touching a radio presenter’s knee repeatedly in 2002 - relatively tame behaviour compared to Berlusconi’s past sex scandals.
“This is a country — and I am sorry to have to say this — where breaking the rules brings votes,” Foa said.
“Everyone wants to be the one who breaks the rules and gets away with it, and Berlusconi did this in a sphere that people like best — the sexual sphere.”
‘ Bunga Bunga’ — the term of uncertain origin that the billionaire media magnate gave to his wild parties with young women at his plush residence near Milan — is now part of the modern Italian lexicon.
Partly as a result of the sex scandals, Berlusconi went through a very public divorce from his second wife, Veronica Lario, in 2014. His current partner, Francesca Pascale, is 49 years his junior. — Reuters