IN TWO AND a half years Silvio Berlusconi has seen his parliamentary majority fall from 100 seats to three in last week’s confidence vote, as partners and allies departed because they found it impossible or unacceptable to work with him. His survival confirms his popular reputation as a winner, but only just. It leaves him groping for individual support to keep his government in office, since alternative parties are not available.
It leaves Italy in a poor position to tackle several deep-seated economic and social problems and badly in need of a new political leadership.
That is easier said than done. The country’s complex politics are fragmented between right-wing, centrist and left-wing forces with varying regional bases of support and mediocre leaders. The post-communist Democratic party’s ambition to become the major pole of opposition to Berlusconi’s right-wing coalition failed to attract sufficient allies, so there is simply no left-centre alternative majority. The disintegration of his electoral bloc which began after Catholic centrists parted company in 2008 was dramatically confirmed this year when Gianfranco Fini broke ranks after a series of personal and corruption scandals. But he too has now failed to remove the prime minister. Talk of a new centrist alliance might in due course help an alternative governing coalition emerge – preferably ahead of a spring election campaign.
Outsiders puzzled and Italians disgusted by Berlusconi’s survival need to pay more attention to his political skills in manipulating supporters, his cultivation of popular support and his prudent reliance on a strong functional state machine as well as to the gaffes, partying, legal irregularities and personal wealth for which he has become notorious. In power for eight of the last 15 years, he has fashioned much of Italy in his own image, assuming everyone has a price and knowing craftiness is widely admired. The ruthless use of his vast media empire to bolster his rule is cut from the same cloth. Opponents have difficulty competing within this political culture and trying to show there is an alternative way.
Things would be better for Berlusconi if economic growth was higher than 1.1 per cent, state debt less than 120 per cent of GDP and the country’s social infrastructure more sustainable. Expenditure cuts, in education and culture for example, are arbitrary and unfair. He has too little achievement to show as he faces into his most difficult time in power.