The View from Bologna

The Passion of Silvio Berlusconi.

Silvio Berlusconi, back in April, as he formed his second government of this legislature, admonished those in the Parliament who spoke of economic crises and a downturn in Italy's fortunes. It would become, he said, in English heavily-accented by his cheesy grin, 'a self fulfilling prophecy'.

It's hard to face the challenge against world communism (what? who said the cold war finished almost fifteen years ago??) when you have those of little faith amongst your own disciples. Berlusconi's centre-right Casa della Libertà coalition has started to show the signs of stress, with 'moderates' like Marco Follini* and his party colleague Pier Ferdinando Casini suggesting that perhaps it's time to think about a change in leadership.

After some heavy soul-searching, like Jesus in Gethsemene, Berluska last week addressed the question of the leadership. "Even though it costs me an enormous sacrifice to recandidate myself I can't see who could take my place," he said humbly to the Italian press who were covering his trip to Russia, to visit his fellow defender of democracy Vladimir Putin.

"If I think of someone from the other side [the Italian left] sitting at the table in my shoes with Putin, Bush or Blair, frankly it makes me feel ill," he continued. No doubt a feeling shared by B² and Putin collectively. Unless of course someone from the centre-right were to take his place. While he's convinced of his credentials, opinion polls suggest that as things stand the centre-left opposition have a 9 point lead.

A couple of days later he announced, surprisingly, that he would be willing to face his main rival Romano Prodi in a number of television debates before next year's election. In the last election, where he won, he refused to debate with the centre-left leader Francesco Rutelli. The conditions this time around? "The same time for both speakers, concrete questions, and impartiality both from the moderator and the studio*," Berlusconi outlined, in interview with one of his own magazines Panorama. Mr Berlusconi owns three out of seven national TV stations, partly controls appointments to three of the remaining four, and owns Italy's largest advertising company which places ads with all the channels.

Visions of Silvio: the popular leader, called to perform his duty at immense personal cost [spiritual no doubt, as his monetary fortunes have increased during his premiership] and to conduct the underdog battling to get his message to the people, hindered by a communist dominated media.

A man of vision, indeed. One can only hope that his reality-defying presentation of himself is part of some infernal marketing plot, dreamed up by teams of PR analysts buried deep in the bowels of his Mediaset organisation. The alternative - that he actually believes in this mythical person presented - is too worrying to contemplate.

Posted by 3Monkeys at September 13, 2005 07:09 PM

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