Berlusconi beckons

Opinion polls suggest Italians are warming to the right, just before next Sunday's general election, writes Samia Nkrumah, from Rome
It has been dubbed the contest of the "rich against the beautiful." Centre-right candidate, , billionaire media tycoon, is pitted against Francesco Rutelli, the suave, handsome, former mayor of Rome, who heads the centre-left in the coming general election. Debate in Italy's general election campaign has centred around personalities rather than the policy issues dividing the two opposing coalitions. The obsession with personality stems from disillusion with national politics. There have been three governments in the last three years. The electorate picks a prime minister only to see him replaced by another, and feels tricked and alienated. The current European Union president himself, Romano Prodi, was elected prime minister in 1996 only to be ousted less than two years later when a key ally withdrew his support.
So far, opinion polls show the centre-right coalition in the lead. In recent years there has been a perceptible shift to the right. And the pace of that shift has quickened, since the European and regional elections in 1999 and 2000.
It is Berlusconi who is credited with this change. The right-winger offers an alternative to the leadership vacuum of the left. Berlusconi's coalition partners have rallied behind him and made him the focus of their campaigning. Rutelli is the more popular man but Berlusconi is perceived as the stronger candidate who enjoys the full support of his coalition. And in the fractious world of Italian politics, that counts.
Berlusconi enjoys other advantages. In the country with the highest number of radio and television transmitters in the world, Berlusconi has a near monopoly over private television. He has a controlling stake in three private television channels, reaching just under half the national television audience. Given that Berlusconi also owns the country's largest publishing group, he enjoys wide and effective coverage. He also owns a prominent football club, AC Milan; this helps him appeal to ordinary Italians. Many of those reason that if the thirteenth richest man in the world (according to Forbes magazine) can run his business empire successfully, he can govern better than bureaucrats and full-time politicians.
But not everyone is so enamoured of Berlusconi. For years he has faced serious allegations ranging from money laundering and the bribing of judges and politicians, to untraceable sources of wealth and suspicions that the Mafia had a hand in his empire-building. He dismisses the charges as a political campaign motivated by a left-leaning judiciary.
But lately the foreign media, irrespective of their political orientation, have not spared Berlusconi. The business-friendly Economist magazine recently argued on its cover "Why Berlusconi is unfit to lead." Both The Economist and The Financial Times have devoted ample coverage to the numerous allegations of corruption Berlusconi has faced and pointed to the conflict of interests between his public and private responsibilities if he wins. The French Le Monde featured an article by an Italian commentator who warned that a Berlusconi victory would herald a "new form of totalitarianism." And the Spanish daily, El Mundo, detailed the charges brought against Berlusconi resulting from his ownership of more of the Spanish network, Telecinco, than is legally allowed.
But the effect of these accusations has been dampened by the centre-left's failure to present a united front. The centre-left coalition is in a transient state, struggling to be perceived as the new left after the fashion of Britain's New Labour. But many regard it rather as a stretched alliance of eight different parties, encompassing former communists, the Democrats of the Left, the Greens, and some left-leaning Christian Democrats.
Rutelli was chosen to head the centre-left coalition because he is not a traditional leftist. He is regarded as a moderate politician whose political career began with the radicals but then shifted to the Greens. Eventually he formed a new party with EU president Romano Prodi. Unsurprisingly, the Refounded Communists, who appeal to the malcontents, distanced themselves from Rutelli's new centre-left coalition. They were instrumental in the collapse of Prodi's government three years ago.
Well-knit as Berlusconi's alliance may seem, some of his partners are not ideal. The most obvious risk comes from the League, which maintains an anti-European line and is committed to radical devolution. The league's leader, Umberto Bossi, is famous for his gaffes and intolerant views of minority groups. Bossi has a history of reneging on coalition agreements; he abandoned Berlusconi's 1994 government after only seven months, leading to its collapse.
The 15 EU governments, 10 out of which are led by centre-left governments, have also been keeping a wary eye on Berlusconi's allies. Unlike the centre-left, which took Italy into the Euro in 1999, the right's loyalty to the EU is untested. And when Italy turned to the centre-left in 1996 with Prodi's election, Britain and Germany followed. A shift back to the right in the sixth largest industrialised country might prove infectious, they fear. The outcome of the coming election will be watched with interest: and not just in Italy.
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