ROME, 20 May 2005 — Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s motorcade zipped through Rome’s Piazza di Spagna the other day, past the fuchsia azaleas cascading down the Spanish Steps, headed toward a ceremony honoring the national police.
“Crook! Crook!’’ shouted several Italians who recognized their leader as he passed by.
Berlusconi has done what no other Italian prime minister has managed since World War II: Stay in power. But these days, public anger over Italy’s moribund economy has finally leveled a serious threat to Berlusconi’s political future. Divisions within his quarrelsome coalition, combined with signs of new electoral strength from an often inept opposition, have left Berlusconi in his most precarious position since 1994, when he was forced from an earlier, brief stint as prime minister.
One of the world’s richest men, Berlusconi, 68, is a media tycoon who has often overseen legislation that benefits him or his interests. He sent Italian troops to Iraq against overwhelming public opinion and periodically faces conflict-of-interest charges in Italian courts.
Yet none of this has seemed to matter to voters. He has held onto his office for four years, longer than any Italian prime minister since the world war. Only now, as Italy’s economy hits historic lows, is deep discontent translating into political action.
“Berlusconi is no longer able to do what he tried to do that last couple of years — blame (the economic downturn) on outside factors — the Euro (currency), international recession and so forth,’’ said James Walston, a political scientist at Rome’s American University.
“Italians aren’t buying it anymore,’’ Walston added. “He tells them he cut their taxes, but they know they are paying more taxes, and more for everything.’’
In a string of humiliating defeats, Berlusconi’s center-right coalition last month lost regional elections in 12 of 14 provinces. And last week, his coalition lost most of the island of Sardinia, where Berlusconi owns numerous luxury villas.
Berlusconi suddenly was being discussed, on radio talk shows and in coffee bars, in the past tense. He was a lame duck, they said. Debated scenarios included early elections to choose a new government, or a major restructuring of the center-right coalition to ease him out. The beleaguered prime minister, a relative novice in politics when he first ran for office in the early ‘90s and who the Bush administration now regards as its strongest ally in continental Europe, gained some respite this week in local voting in Sicily, land of ancient Greek ruins and a still-active Mafia.
Umberto Scapagnini, Berlusconi’s candidate — and personal physician — defied the predictions and won election as mayor of Catania, one of the island’s most important cities. Officials from Berlusconi’s party, Forza Italia (Go, Italy), credited the fact that the prime minister flew to Sicily and stumped on Scapagnini’s behalf.
“The numbers speak for themselves,’’ Berlusconi said. “United, we can win.’’
Some saw the victory as Berlusconi’s salvation. Italy’s leading daily Corriere della Sera said he faced and won the most important test of his leadership since taking office in 2001.
But Walston and other analysts, and the center-left opposition, believe the relief will be temporary. There are no economic miracles on the horizon, they say, that can salvage the government ahead of general elections next spring. Italy formally has been branded one of the worst performing economies in Europe — and the weakest link in the bloc of 12 nations that use the Euro currency. Data released this month showed the country has plunged into recession for the second time in as many years, and Finance Minister Domenico Siniscalco was forced to slash the country’s 2005 growth forecast for the second time this quarter.
Most of Italy’s economic problems are entrenched and pre-date Berlusconi. But he comes in for criticism for ignoring bad news and failing to act.
Saddled with the third largest debt in the world, Italy relies heavily on family-controlled businesses (like Berlusconi’s) and, in contrast to other Western countries, has failed to diversify into high-tech industries, maintaining instead traditional trades like clothing and leather that are vulnerable to cheaper foreign competition. Important sectors including energy remain in the hands of inefficient state monopolies, and a very large public sector demands generous, expensive pensions.
