Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will not go gently into the political night:
With a nickname like “The Knight”, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi could hardly have been expected to simply surrender.
The man who once said that being a loser and giving up was not part of his DNA now refuses to concede after the narrowest election defeat in modern Italian history. Crying foul, he is demanding a review of disputed ballots.
Hey: A potential consultant’s job for Katherine Harris..…MORE from the Reuters piece:
Irresponsible, unrealistic, unfair, his critics reply. But not out of character.
Berlusconi’s ballot battle is an example of the determination that propelled the son of a bank branch employee to become Italy’s richest man and head of its longest serving government.
“It’s absolutely in his character. It’s not certain that he has been defeated … and he doesn’t just give up,” said pollster Renato Mannheimer.
The 69-year-old media tycoon has sold most things in his career: essays to school friends, vacuum cleaners, housing developments, soap operas, adverts, books, magazines, insurance policies and soccer stars.
But survival in the prime minister’s office may be his toughest sell yet, especially after centre-left leader Romano Prodi declared victory and began preparations to assume power.
Berlusconi is undaunted by these proclamations, as The Telegraph notes:
The opposition leader claimed victory by the slimmest of margins and the interior ministry said Mr Prodi’s centre-Left Olive Tree coalition had won the lower house by just 25,000 votes.
It also declared Mr Prodi victorious in the Senate race, thanks to votes in overseas constituencies created by Mr Berlusconi’s government.
In keeping with the histrionics of his campaigning, the billionaire prime minister refused to go quietly. He called for the help of the court of appeal and the Supreme Court to decide the election.
He said Mr Prodi would “pay the consequences” for declaring victory and declared the country was so split that he did “not think the country can go forward in this type of civil war”.
Mr Prodi, a technocrat who briefly served as prime minister in the mid-1990s, dismissed a suggestion by his rival for a “grand coalition” of Right and Left to govern Italy.
He said Mr Berlusconi had lost his grip on reality. “We went before voters with a precise coalition. We will govern with the coalition majority,” he said.
According to the New York Times, Berlusconi wants either a recount or a German style coalition government:
Although final results announced Tuesday showed his center-left opponent, Romano Prodi, with a thin lead in both houses of Parliament, Mr. Berlusconi contended that the vote was so close that there was ample room for error.
“We cannot recognize the outcome of a vote until there is a definitive, clear judgment,” he said, refusing to concede defeat after two days of voting on Sunday and Monday and a suspenseful night of returns that whipped back and forth before settling finally on Mr. Prodi. “Until that day, no one can say they have won.”
Mr. Berlusconi’s comments locked Italy into a state of political uncertainty, disenchanted with him and his failure to improve the economy, but apparently worried that Mr. Prodi, an old establishment face, might do little better.
The political class lamented results that showed Italy split between left and right, south and north, traditional versus maverick politics, giving no clear mandate to either leader.
What relevance do these elections have for people beyond Italy? A great deal. The lack of a mandate suggests that no matter what the final actual vote outcome, whoever is in power will be skating on thin political ice.
The world community is increasingly linked, and Italy has a key role in the European community. Berlusconi has also been a loyal supporter of President George Bush in the Iraq war, and on other matters. Prodi is likely to seek to tilt to a stronger alliance with Europe, than with George Bush. So the winner will have an impact on Italy’s future course.
The newspaper The Independent’s piece notes that Berlusconi bit the dust on the day when a top Mafioso had bad day, too:
It was the crowning tragi-comic moment of a historic day in which Italy finally got a new government. By now, after such twists and turns, he was an isolated figure as the congratulations rained in on the winner, Romano Prodi.
And the fact that an era was passing was underlined by the stunning news, just seven minutes after Mr Berlusconi’s defeat became certain, that the most wanted mafioso in Sicily, the man from Corleone who has been capo di capi for 13 years and on the run for 30 more than that, had been arrested.
A political vacuum had opened up: Berlusconi, long tainted by his Mafia links, was on his way; and suddenly the biggest mobster of the lot was in the bag. Italy does not lose its capacity to amaze.
Why did he lose? The AP points to two key factors:
Two pieces of legislation that Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s government was proud of played a role in his election defeat.
One of the first laws promoted by Berlusconi’s government after he came to power in 2001 gave Italians who live abroad the right to vote by mail and made them a new constituency, represented by six senators as well as 12 lawmakers in the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies.
But the vote from Italians abroad proved decisive in this week’s election, giving center-left economist Romano Prodi the critical four Senate seats he needed to win, 158-156.
…Also boosting Prodi’s chances of governing with a comfortable majority was electoral reform returning proportional representation to parliament. The law was meant to placate Berlusconi’s tinier allies by improving the chances that smaller parties would receive seats.
But the reform included a provision giving a bonus to the winner in the Chamber guaranteeing the victorious coalition at least 55 percent of the seats in the lower house. The intention of the provision was to make it hard for an array of tiny parties to prevent the new government from passing legislation.
And the new Prime Minister? He seems to be the antithesis of the controversial and bigger-than-life Berlusconi — a man who promises Italy is in for an era of “serenity.” The New York Times notes:
The question now – with Italian politics hung up after so narrow an election, beset by economic troubles and accustomed to the theatricality of the Berlusconi era – is whether a man with such apparent inner peace is sturdy enough for the challenges that await him.
Prodi’s critics say he is a weak leader who turned in a mediocre performance in five years as president of the European Commission, and will be unlikely to keep his fractious center-left coalition together during hard times, especially after the narrowest of elections.
But his supporters say other qualities lurk beneath the tranquil and bespectacled gaze. Reputedly an inept soccer player as a youth, he is now devoted to solo sports of endurance. He is a bicyclist and marathoner who finished his first race, in December, in 4 hours, 21 minutes. “I am a diesel engine,” he said.
“He has a different way of dealing with things and people, but he has demonstrated he can be very stubborn in his decisions,” said Emma Bonino, a former European Union parliamentarian and now leader of the Radical Party in Italy. “When he decides something, he definitely goes forward.”
Of course, some will ask: has the fat lady REALLY sung yet?
Because if this Italian election is similar to the U.S. 2000 Presidential race, with a close vote bitterly in dispute, then perhaps there may be some surprises down the road — and Mr. Prodi might not want to start his election celebrations just yet.
And if Berlusconi eventually triumphs? Italy might be in danger of being as polarized as the United States, proving that it may not be that a far a distance from Tampa to Rome after all…
UPDATE: The AP reports that Italy could be in for a period of paralysis:
Center-left challenger Romano Prodi claimed an outright electoral victory Tuesday over Premier Silvio Berlusconi before official results were in, but the slim margin could return Italy to political paralysis and instability.
…For hours after the vote ended Monday, projections and returns swung dramatically back and forth between the two coalitions, and without the vote from Italians living abroad, the election’s outcome remained unclear. Voter turnout was about 84 percent.
“These results mean the country is divided in two. There needs to be a provisional government for a few months then new elections,” said Marco Piva, a banker from Padova, as he took the train into work. “This is the worst result that we could have had.”
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.