Following election results in Italy is like watching the same movie again and again always hoping for, but never getting, a different ending. Viewers leave asking the same question: Why do Italians continue to vote for Silvio Berlusconi?
Certainly, Italians do care about politics, as this week’s elections results can testify (the turnout was still close to 75 percent at a time of high political disaffection). Foreigners have a hard time understanding why a media mogul who led Italy to the brink of bankruptcy in 2011, who is accused of tax fraud, Mafia associations, exploiting underage prostitutes and misconduct in public office, still manages to compete head to head in national elections. But Italians are not surprised, for several reasons:
Forty minutes after the polls closed and the first exit polls showed a strong result for Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party, his family-controlled media company Mediaset gained 10 percent on the Milan stock exchange. Although it retreated in late afternoon, the performance was symbolic of the deep intertwining of Italian politics with Berlusconi’s economic and media interests.
Besides being one of the country’s richest men, Berlusconi’s media holdings have given him leverage in all aspects of Italian economic life. Freedom House has ranked Italy as the only West European country with a “partly free” press.
To explain Berlusconi’s political popularity only by his influence in the media, however, would be simplistic. The second reason is that a number of people directly benefit from his victory. Since 1994, Berlusconi has nurtured a broad constituency among businessmen and private individuals who benefit from lax government regulations.
Historically, moreover, Italian voters have always been attracted by the uomo forte, the strong man, a charismatic leader who is capable of singlehandedly solving the country’s problems.
This happened with Mussolini in the 1920s, but the popularity of other figures such as the late Socialist Prime Minister Bettino Craxi, the late Communist leader Enrico Berlinguer and more recently the comedian-turned-politician Beppe Grillo can to a certain extent be explained by Italy’s fascination with the charismatic figure who makes promises of progress and prosperity. Italians find these strong men attractive even when they cut corners in the democratic process.
With his ever-young look, elegant attire and almost shameless show of wealth, Berlusconi effortlessly fits the image of the uomo forte.
Last, but not least, Italians are a nation that cheers for a political party as blindly and intensively as it cheers for a favorite football team. Berlusconi does, in fact, own a football team, but this habit is rooted in the long Cold War confrontation between two political parties, the Christian Democrats and the Communists. Berlusconi in effect inherited the votes of the Christian Democratic party after it collapsed under corruption scandals.
There are no doubt other reasons for Berlusconi’s success in the general election, including the lack of a charismatic leader on the center-left. But Berlusconi’s resilience on the Italian political scene over the past 20 years runs far deeper. The factors that compel Italians to vote for Berlusconi are the same factors that are driving Italy out of touch from reality and toward social, cultural and economic decline.
Meanwhile, Europe and the rest of the world wait in a state of perplexity for the movie theater to go out of business.
Francesco Giumelli is assistant professor of international relations and European studies at Metropolitan University Prague. Davide Maneschi is a Ph.D. fellow in the department of development and planning at Aalborg University in Denmark.