Home
News
In Focus
Business
Metro
Nation
World
Sports
Feature
Opinion
View more »Opinion Columns
Wan LixinOpinion deputy editor of Shanghai Daily
Restaurants get off to a quick start thanks to game-changing policies
High service charges on event ticket refunds call for further regulation
Sunday
- Subscribe
Related News
Berlusconi's approval rating dribbles below 50%
Source: Agencies |
June 29, 2009, Monday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
ITALIAN Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's approval rating has slipped below 50 percent after a scandal about prostitutes and news that his wife was divorcing him because of his relationship with a teenage girl from Naples.
Berlusconi's credibility is under attack just when he is about to host a summit of Group of Eight leaders, and has had to spend his time defending his private life and denying he paid for sex.
The 72-year-old media tycoon had an approval rating of 49.1 percent in a new opinion poll prepared for Corriere della Sera newspaper published yesterday.
The pollsters compared that to his average of 51 percent for the first five months of 2009.
That is way under the 61 percent support that Berlusconi himself said last week that he enjoys, citing his own private polls.
But even that would be a sharp drop from the 75 percent popularity rating Berlusconi had claimed before the scandals.
"The fact remains that, despite everything, Berlusconi still enjoys the trust of roughly half of Italian people," political analyst Renato Mannheimer said in comments accompanying the poll in Corriere della Sera.
The scandal erupted in May when Berlusconi's wife said she was filing for divorce because he promoted pretty young women in politics and befriended an 18-year-old girl.
The scandal snowballed with photos of parties at his Sardinian villa showing scantily clad women, then peaked when an escort said she and others had been paid to attend his parties and that she had slept with him.
The premier, who has not denied the woman went to his home, says he did not know she was a prostitute. He calls it all a "subversive attack" organized by the leftist media.
The poll showed a sharp fall in support among women and young people, but especially among practising Catholics, where his approval dropped to 54 percent from 61 percent.
But Mannheimer said that Berlusconi's support was still relatively high because he acted decisively on issues such as the Naples rubbish crisis and the recession.
Berlusconi's credibility is under attack just when he is about to host a summit of Group of Eight leaders, and has had to spend his time defending his private life and denying he paid for sex.
The 72-year-old media tycoon had an approval rating of 49.1 percent in a new opinion poll prepared for Corriere della Sera newspaper published yesterday.
The pollsters compared that to his average of 51 percent for the first five months of 2009.
That is way under the 61 percent support that Berlusconi himself said last week that he enjoys, citing his own private polls.
But even that would be a sharp drop from the 75 percent popularity rating Berlusconi had claimed before the scandals.
"The fact remains that, despite everything, Berlusconi still enjoys the trust of roughly half of Italian people," political analyst Renato Mannheimer said in comments accompanying the poll in Corriere della Sera.
The scandal erupted in May when Berlusconi's wife said she was filing for divorce because he promoted pretty young women in politics and befriended an 18-year-old girl.
The scandal snowballed with photos of parties at his Sardinian villa showing scantily clad women, then peaked when an escort said she and others had been paid to attend his parties and that she had slept with him.
The premier, who has not denied the woman went to his home, says he did not know she was a prostitute. He calls it all a "subversive attack" organized by the leftist media.
The poll showed a sharp fall in support among women and young people, but especially among practising Catholics, where his approval dropped to 54 percent from 61 percent.
But Mannheimer said that Berlusconi's support was still relatively high because he acted decisively on issues such as the Naples rubbish crisis and the recession.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
