Here we go again. Italians are voting for the 62nd time in 63 years. Voting started yesterday and will conclude today. Elections have become so common in Italy that voting is fast becoming a national sport.
And yet again the main contender, now vying for his third term in office, is Silvio Berlusconi — the favourite sport of foreign columnists. The 71-year-old flamboyant billionaire is good copy. His persona, his gaffes, his words, all provide journalists with ample opportunities to make fun of a man whose control of the media in his home turf is so complete that journalists who draw his ire can lose their jobs overnight. So perhaps it is not surprising that those who are free to criticize him do so with such relish.
On the other side of the ring is a man some twenty years younger and a darling of the Hollywood set: Walter Veltroni. Once a communist, now a leftist centrist a la Blair, Veltroni is the former mayor of Rome and head of the newly formed Democratic Party.
The last polls put Berlusconi ahead by 5-9 percent, but indications are that Veltroni has closed the gap in the final two weeks of campaigning, when Italian law bans opinion polls.
There is not a huge difference between the two men in terms of the policies they offer. Both want to cut taxes. Berlusconi went as far as to suggest that Italians would be offered one tax-free month a year, only to be forced to retract his promise as unworkable. Meanwhile Veltroni plans to cut income tax by one percentage point a year over three years. Both intent to sell off state-owned property to cut public debt. In essence both have the same ideas in order to restart Italy’s stagnant economy and to deal with its huge level of debt.
They’re pretty close on law and order too. Both want to see more police on the street. Neither cares much for immigrants. Veltroni was famously behind the law which allowed Italy to expel EU citizens from its soil, a law aimed at Roma who have flocked to Italy and Rome in particular. Berlusconi would like to see all illegal immigrants immediately deported.
Veltroni does have a couple of more traditionally left-wing policies including a promise to raise benefits for parents and pensioners and to introduce a minimum wage for workers on temporary contracts.
In terms of foreign policy, Berlusconi is more of an Atlantist and Veltroni a European likely to continue on the same general lines as Romano Prodi, the outgoing prime minister. Regarding the Middle East, Berlusconi will never endear himself to Muslim hearts after his assertion in 2001 that Western civilization was not only superior to Islam but that the West should continue to conquer people as it has historically done.
This may be billed as a two-horse race, but neither Berlusconi nor Veltroni is likely to win an outright majority. Both are likely to need to broker coalition deals with smaller parties in order to form a government. And with more than a 150 parties on the regional and national ballot papers, there is no shortage of parties or prime ministerial candidates on offer.
And I just love the names of Italian political movements. Though Veltroni is campaigning for the unremarkably named “Democratic Party”, some of his colleagues come from what was known as “the Daisy Party”. To the left of Veltroni is “the Rainbow Alliance” — a group that includes Marxists and environmentalists. As for Berlusconi, he is campaigning with “the People of Liberty”, sometimes translated as “Freedom Folk”. It is an alliance between his Forza Italia party, in itself such a forceful name, and other right-wing groups such as the National Alliance, who are, well, let us call a spade a spade: Fascists.
The neofascists or post-fascists or any other variation denoting that they believe in fascism but would like to call it something more respectable are alive and well and best represented by perhaps the most interesting of all the prime ministerial candidates, and for that matter the only woman on the ballot: Daniela Santanche. Her brand new party is called quite simply: The Right, and it is made up of the extreme right-wingers of the National Alliance who did not want to join Berlusconi’s People of Liberty.
Santanche has been an outspoken critic of Berlusconi. She has particularly attacked his attitudes to women, urging women not to vote for him because “he sees us only horizontally, never vertically.” Berlusconi meanwhile has stayed in character claiming that people will vote for her “because she is a beautiful babe.” But Santanche is not giving in to his advances, telling journalists “she’ll never give it to him”. However, the real damage to Berlusconi comes not from his comments about sexy right-wingers but from those about one of Italy’s most popular footballers: Francesco Totti, the captain of AC Roma. Totti has indicated that he will vote for Francesco Rutelli, the center-left candidate in the mayoral elections in Rome, prompting Berlusconi to tell a Rome rally that Totti was “out of his mind.” Totti is not only a star but a legend in Rome, a man who has played for the club since he was 15 and is the club’s highest scorer and most capped player.
Insulting Totti is an important miscalculation on Berlusconi’s part. He has angered many potential voters who are likely to switch camps and vote for Santanche’s party. Berlusconi of all people should have known better than to attack a sporting icon in a country where football is a national passion.
Will it cost him the premiership? Maybe, maybe not. What is sure is that the result is not a foregone conclusion. As Italy’s 40 million voters go to the polls, it’s worth remembering that over 30 percent say they are undecided, that is a staggering 12 million people.
