Berlusconi plots comeback as he dreams the impossible
Source: Agencies |
July 14, 2012, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
WHEN Silvio Berlusconi resigned after dominating Italy's political scene for two decades, he left a country in financial shambles and a personal legacy tarnished by sex and corruption scandals.
Commentators called it the end of an era.
Eight months later the political world is abuzz with signs that the 75-year-old media mogul is plotting a return to power that even his closest allies had considered impossible.
Even as one-time friend, now bitter foe Gianfranco Fini appeared incredulous in a television interview on Thursday night - saying "Italians no longer believe in miracles" - Berlusconi's allies were talking him up. "He's our strongest candidate," said Angelino Alfano, a former justice minister previously considered as Berlusconi's heir apparent.
Berlusconi himself has yet to commit. But his friends are now openly calling him a candidate and spreading reports that business leaders are pushing him to enter the race for elections next spring. He reportedly has designed a new symbol with a patriotic touch for his party - a kite in the Italian tricolor.
What's changed from the November night when he left the presidential palace by a back door following his resignation to avoid jeering demonstrators in the square outside?
An increasingly unpopular austerity program aimed largely at reversing the excesses of the Berlusconi era.
Berlusconi, a three-time former premier, has always claimed to be attuned to the popular mood, abolishing the property tax on first homes in a move seen as decisive to his victory in 2008 elections. His successor at the head of a technocrat government, economics professor Mario Monti, has given Italy an air of respectability in European and international circles, but his economic recovery package is causing more pain than growth.
Commentators called it the end of an era.
Eight months later the political world is abuzz with signs that the 75-year-old media mogul is plotting a return to power that even his closest allies had considered impossible.
Even as one-time friend, now bitter foe Gianfranco Fini appeared incredulous in a television interview on Thursday night - saying "Italians no longer believe in miracles" - Berlusconi's allies were talking him up. "He's our strongest candidate," said Angelino Alfano, a former justice minister previously considered as Berlusconi's heir apparent.
Berlusconi himself has yet to commit. But his friends are now openly calling him a candidate and spreading reports that business leaders are pushing him to enter the race for elections next spring. He reportedly has designed a new symbol with a patriotic touch for his party - a kite in the Italian tricolor.
What's changed from the November night when he left the presidential palace by a back door following his resignation to avoid jeering demonstrators in the square outside?
An increasingly unpopular austerity program aimed largely at reversing the excesses of the Berlusconi era.
Berlusconi, a three-time former premier, has always claimed to be attuned to the popular mood, abolishing the property tax on first homes in a move seen as decisive to his victory in 2008 elections. His successor at the head of a technocrat government, economics professor Mario Monti, has given Italy an air of respectability in European and international circles, but his economic recovery package is causing more pain than growth.
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