Silvio poses as the syrupy saviour
ITALY: The renaissance of Silvio Berlusconi is put to the test today when Italy decides if the 81-yearold tycoon will be dismissed as a relic or hailed as its saviour.
Berlusconi has seized the reins of a fractious right-wing alliance for today’s general election, proclaiming: ‘‘There has to be a revolution in this country and we are the revolutionaries.’’
The former prime minister has lost none of his touch, appearing in a wholesome set of photographs at home with his girlfriend Francesca Pascale, 32, in Chi ,a women’s magazine he owns.
‘‘Her sweetness makes up for everything,’’ Berlusconi declares in text alongside pictures of her embracing him at a breakfast table laden with fruit and yoghurts. The cover shows an athletic Berlusconi chasing two of their beloved white dogs - his favourite is called Dudu in the garden, a far cry from other pursuits that landed him in court after his notorious ‘‘bunga-bunga’’ sex parties.
Although he cannot hold office until 2019 after his conviction for tax fraud, he has confounded the pundits to turn the tables in just a few months. It now seems possible his conservative party, Forza Italia, joined by the hardline League and the post-fascist Brothers of Italy, could be the biggest bloc in parliament.
The last polls, published two weeks ago, showed they would beat both the insurgents of the Five Star Movement and the governing centre-left coalition led by the Democratic Party (PD).
Il Cavaliere, or ‘‘the Knight’’, as he is known, commanded the stage last week in an ancient Roman temple where his allies sat uncomfortably on a dais lit for television.
His expensively rejuvenated, parchment-like face was split by a gleaming smile as he wove a spell of glad-handing and gallantry, undaunted by gender sensitivities or the manifest boredom of his partners as he talked on and on.
At one point he lectured Giorgia Meloni, a 41-year-old firebrand who leads the Brothers of Italy, on why she needed to ‘‘win over the husbands first so that the votes of their households will follow’’.
He repeatedly interrupted Matteo Salvini, 44, the head of the League, a forceful orator who aspires to be prime minister and is not used to being put in his place.
There were signs that Berlusconi’s grasp of detail was no longer the sharpest, such as when he informed the audience that Europe was struggling to keep Ireland inside its customs union. But he has chosen a credible figurehead, Antonio Tajani, 64, a Forza Italia MEP who is president of the European parliament, as his candidate for prime minister.
In an interview with The Sunday Times, Tajani said the next government’s top priorities were immigration and youth unemployment, claiming that a vote for the Five Star Movement or the left would invite chaos.
‘‘I believe the Italians are more intelligent than that,’’ he said, ‘‘for Europe, for the single currency, for the economy, for Italy itself what’s fundamental is that there’s a government that can govern for the next five years and lead the country to make the necessary reforms.’’
Tajani grew up in the elite Roman suburb of Parioli and was an ardent supporter of Italy’s deposed monarchy before joining Berlusconi to co-found Forza Italia.
‘‘Growth, youth unemployment, clandestine immigration, internal and external security these are the big problems,’’ he said.
‘‘A stable Italian government will count for more in Brussels because we can’t leave Europe to the Franco-Germans,’’ he added.
The right has united against mass migration, vowing to expel 600,000 people who have landed on Italy’s shores from Africa. Berlusconi has blithely spoken of 10,000 deportations every month.
Across town in a theatre decked with banners, the left-wing premier, Paolo Gentiloni, a 63-year-old Roman aristocrat, fought back with facts and figures to defend the government’s economic record and to show that migrant numbers are down by a third after tougher measures at sea and a deal with Libya.
‘‘There are not alternative truths,’’ he said. ‘‘There is one reality.’’
Matteo Renzi, the PD’s leader, urged its supporters to vote despite disillusion and splits inside the party, warning that abstention could hand victory to a new populist right.
‘‘They are not waging a campaign on facts but on hate and fear,’’ said Renzi, a former prime minister. - Sunday Times