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By Ian Fisher
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
ROME: Silvio Berlusconi, the idiosyncratic billionaire who already dominates
much of Italy's public life, snatched back political power in elections that
ended Monday, heading a center-right coalition certain to make him prime
minister for a third term.
But with a weak economy and frustration high that Italy has lost ground to the
rest of Europe, it was unclear whether Italians voted for Berlusconi out of
affection or, as many experts said, as the least bad choice after the nation
weathered two years of inaction from the fractured center-left.
Still, Italy now returns to a singular sort of personal politics with
Berlusconi as the unquestioned protagonist.
Rejecting the sober responsibility of the departing prime minister, Romano
Prodi, Italians chose in a moment of national self-doubt a man whose dramas
the clowning and corruption scandals, his rocky relations with his wife and
political partners, his growing hairline and ever browner hair play out very
much in public.
Berlusconi expressed "deep satisfaction" at his victory in a brief telephone
call to a national television show.
But while his coalition won a convincing majority in both houses of Parliament,
the victory came with much help from the Northern League, which advocates a
federal system favoring the more prosperous north.
In 1994, that party caused Berlusconi's first government to collapse a history
that center-left leaders made clear on Monday in defeat.
"A season of opposition now begins against a majority that will have a hard
time keeping together things that are difficult to keep together," said Walter
Veltroni, 52, the former mayor of Rome and the leader of the Democratic Party
who ran against Berlusconi. "I don't know how long this majority will last."
The Democratic Party will now be the largest opposition group.
Berlusconi, 71, Italy's third-richest man and owner of media and sports
businesses, did not give a victory speech. But in the phone call to the
television station, Berlusconi, declaring himself "moved," reached out to
Veltroni to make changes most Italians say are needed to get Italy moving
again. "We are always open to working together with the opposition," he said.
Berlusconi will make a fuller statement Tuesday. But he promised immediate
action on many of the problems vexing Italians, like the trash crisis in the
south that has tarnished the nation's image and the sale of the near-bankrupt
national airline, Alitalia.
The election called just two years after Berlusconi lost to Prodi was
considered one of the least exciting in memory, with many Italians doubting
that either candidate could accomplish any meaningful change.
But in some basic ways, the election signaled a decisive shift in a nation
whose politics have been unstable because of the narrow interests of its many
small parties. Veltroni, heading the new Democratic Party, the result of a
merger of the two largest center-left parties, had refused to run with far-left
parties, as Prodi had done.
As a result, the ANSA news agency reported that the number of parties in the
lower house of Parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, would drop to just 6 from
26. For the first time since World War II, there will be no one in Parliament
representing the Communist Party, which has long played an important part in
leftist politics here. Veltroni, in fact, started his political career as a
Communist.
Experts on the left and the right said and in some cases lamented that the
election had shown a shift toward a more American- or British-style system of
two dominant middle-ground parties.
"It's a Waterloo," said Tuesday's headline in the moderate left daily Il
Riformista.
Its editor, Antonio Polito, a departing senator from the now-defunct Margherita
Party, said, "The left is disappearing for the first time in history."
Referring to Veltroni's party, he added, "The only party that managed to save
itself after two disastrous Prodi years is a party that is modeling itself
after the Democratic or Labor Parties" in the United States and Britain,
respectively.
Berlusconi's spokesman, Paolo Bonaiuti, echoed the analysis. "Italy has
rewarded a simplification of the political panorama," he said.
Late but still partial results showed that in voting for the lower house,
Berlusconi and his allies had won just 46.6 percent of the vote, with Veltroni
and his one ally at 38 percent. The lower house has a built-in winner's prize,
aimed at ensuring an easier majority, and early estimates had Berlusconi's
coalition with roughly 340 seats to Veltroni's 241.
The upper house, the Senate, is far more complicated, with seats awarded by
region. Before his government fell in January, Prodi had just a one-seat
majority. Early projections on Monday showed Berlusconi with a 20-seat lead. In
the popular vote, his coalition won 47 percent, compared to 38 percent for that
of Veltroni.
In his campaign, Veltroni ran as a young face for change, portraying Berlusconi
personally as weary and as a man who promised much when elected in 2001 but
delivered little. While Berlusconi flew around in planes and helicopters, the
low-key Veltroni toured the country in a bus, a sort of retail politics
uncommon here in Italy.
In the end, said Piero Ottone, a prominent political columnist here, Veltroni
failed "to capture the nation's imagination, because our elections are decided
by personality more than programs.
"And," he continued, "he just wasn't imaginative or energetic enough to leave a
mark."
Berlusconi, he said, ran a campaign that emphasized a natural glee that
Italians still find attractive. "This time he just made jokes," Ottone said.
"He had no political message, but he still made headlines."
But Berlusconi's campaign was more subdued than his four other runs for
national office, a reflection, many experts said, of the deep problems facing
Italy, where growth has again dropped nearly to zero.
In this election, his promises were more modest lowering taxes, cutting
government spending and improving the nation's ailing infrastructure a
platform not much different from that of Veltroni. Several experts, however,
said Berlusconi would face much pressure to push through change, especially
from owners of small and medium businesses.
Some experts said Berlusconi heads into his third term in office facing deep
difficulties with the Northern League, whose leader, Umberto Bossi, on hearing
the early results, shouted, "The league is strong!"
Bossi called for "federalism now," meaning that the north should have more say
over the much larger tax revenue it produces compared with the poorer south.
Such proposals are contentious in Italy, where the lagging of the south is a
big problem for the nation's overall development.