On January 26, 1994, a little-known Silvio Berlusconi uttered a phrase that was broadcast on all Italian channels and that changed the country’s history: “Italy is the country I love”. It was his first major foray into national politics, which he dubbed “the entrance to the field,” a playing field he hasn’t left for nearly 30 years. Berlusconi won those elections in a country still reeling from the Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) corruption scandal, which wiped out the main parties and forced the rest to reinvent themselves. At that moment, Berlusconi knew how to be the right man at the right time and to use a new language in the midst of a completely fragmented political bid.
Into the fiery campaign for the September 25 general election, Il Cavaliere – at 85 and still active as president of the conservative Forza Italia party he founded – returns with the same 1994 staging to present himself as the leader of his training. But now he has countless unpaid bills and a certain scent of revenge for the political and legal mishaps of recent years.
The tycoon has dusted off his old workhorses and uncovered his desire for revenge for his great lost deeds. This week, in his “Pills of the Day” campaign videos he posts on social media: Election advertising was banned from TV 22 years ago to prevent Berlusconi from flooding Mediaset channels with electoral propaganda – the three-time Italian Prime Minister and now The MP has indicted against justice, one of his great personal crusades. And he has promised that the acquittal verdicts cannot be challenged by prosecutors or the prosecution when the law prevails. “Thousands of people are being arrested and brought to justice even though they are innocent,” he said. As prime minister in 2006, he attempted a similar reform that was rejected by the constitutional court.
Berlusconi has also revealed in this campaign his desire for revenge in the Senate, from which he was ousted nine years ago after his tax fraud conviction, which spelled his end in Parliament after 20 years of uninterrupted presence. And he has announced that he will be a candidate in the House elections. “I was pressured by a lot of people, including from outside of Forza Italia, to introduce myself,” he slipped. “It’s a mixture of revenge and ambition,” summarizes Gianfranco Pasquino, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Bologna.
“What Berlusconi does best is campaigning. Governing is different. It repeats a lot of things from the past and part of Italy believes them. He incorporates his personal experience into his proposals, particularly in relation to the judiciary,” says Professor Pasquino.
Berlusconi’s words have unleashed a storm of criticism from magistrates, magistrates and prosecutors, a group he has always targeted. Roberto D’Alimonte, political scientist and professor at the Free International University Guido Carli in Rome, where he founded the Italian Center for Electoral Studies (CISE), believes that the Forza Italia leader’s proposals “reflect his idea that justice in the hands of judges who want to use them for political purposes” and points out that Berlusconi wants to “limit the power of the judges”.
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Berlusconi has had a long history of trials on all kinds of grounds, with a trail of investigations, indictments, appeals and acquittals. His file also contains a four-year prison sentence and five-year political disqualification for tax evasion for selling film rights for Mediaset. The sentence was reduced to one year through the application of a 2006 pardons law sponsored by his own government, and the Italian tycoon escaped jail because of his age. He later commuted the sentence to a year of community service in elderly care in a residential home. In 2018, a court in Milan rehabilitated him for politics.
The allegations of pushing laws and judicial reforms to further his private interests are a constant in the tycoon’s career. On the other hand, he always felt persecuted and presented himself as a victim of “unjust judicial cruelty”. “His insistence on questions of justice has to do with his personal history. He always saw himself as a victim and never forgave his alleged persecutors,” says Marco Tarchi, professor at the Cesare Alfieri School of Political Science at the University of Florence. And he adds: “In addition, due to his age, he can speak freely and without inhibitions. However, I don’t think his allies – particularly the ultra-conservative leader of the Brethren of Italy Giorgia Meloni, who is the favorite in the polls – will follow him in this polemic. On the contrary, I think they are concerned about the boomerang effect that these hasty statements could have.”
rematch in the Senate
“Running for the Senate is a way of showing the Italians that his sacking was a mistake, a political decision. He seeks revenge on those who drove him out,” D’Alimonte estimates. The media in Italy point out that La Liga leader Matteo Salvini convinced him that his party would help overthrow Mario Draghi’s government by offering him the presidency of the Senate. “As President of the Senate, the second position in the state, he would start from a more favorable position to be elected President of the Republic, a big dream he never gave up,” says D’Alimonte.
For Berlusconi, the fall of Draghi he brought about was a political opportunity, but it also had a revenge component. Modern Italy’s longest-serving Prime Minister has always boasted that it was he who put the renowned economist at the head of the Bank of Italy, and does not forgive him for not coming to his aid when he was forced when Prime Minister to resign in 2011 after the European Union and markets asked the then-President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, for his head in exchange for shaking hands with bankrupt Italy. “I don’t think Draghi was his target, but Berlusconi thinks that others have not been generous with him: it’s a constant psychological trait in him. And of course, the popularity Draghi enjoys can only arouse jealousy in him, another emotion he lavishes on anyone in the media spotlight.”
One of Berlusconi’s great unfulfilled dreams is to become President of the Republic. He has tried several times without success, most recently in January of this year. Now, in the midst of the election campaign, he has returned to the issue and has proposed a constitutional reform of the head of state so that, unlike the current system, which is incumbent on parliament, he is elected by direct elections of the citizens. Furthermore, he has revealed that the current president, Sergio Mattarella, should step down if this reform comes about.
The idea of Mattarella resigning, who reluctantly announced in January that he was still in office due to a lack of agreement in Parliament to find a successor for him, drew criticism from the rest of the rival political forces.
The octogenarian tycoon, who turns 86 four days after the elections, is contesting the elections in the right-wing coalition, which is favorite in the polls, with two far-right parties, La Liga and Brothers of Italy, leading the vote lie intention. The alliance has already said that if it wins the elections, the party with the most votes in the parliamentary group will nominate the prime minister’s name. Although Berlusconi has no options for it a priori as the polls give him around 9%, his role surrounded by Ultras could be decisive. “Berlusconi represents the most pro-European wing, he has an important function, namely to soften the anti-Europeanism of Meloni and Salvini; Their mission is to anchor the coalition in Europe,” explains Roberto D’Alimonte.
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