Silvio Berlusconi now wants to become president (and he has his chances)

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Unsinkable Silvio Berlusconi, 85, survivor of the Covid-19 he had in 2020. Criminal record as long as an arm, trials, scandals, hospitalizations, repeated facelifts … and rage as on the first day. His goal for 2022 is to become president (and honor the promise he once made to his mother).

The election will take place from January 24. In Italy, it is not a popular vote: the head of state is appointed by the electorate. Sergio Mattarella does not want to represent himself, “Il Cavaliere” dreams of settling in his chair.

Even if this is an essentially honorary position, it would be the consecration before leaving the stage. Berlusconi has already been President of the Council (the head of government) four times, and no one since World War II has done so well. Today he wants another title. If elected, it would be the first time in 23 years that an Italian head of state would be ranked on the right of the political spectrum.

But above all, it would allow him to take advantage of the immunity collar as in Koh Lanta : protection for seven years, during his term of office. Considering his posture, it’s quite tempting, he is still involved in two trials linked to “Bunga Bunga” parties with prostitutes and minors. That was over ten years ago but the proceedings are still ongoing.

On the right, Silvio Berlusconi is clearly one of the favorites. In addition to the elected members of his party, Forza Italia, he can count on the support of the League of Matteo Salvini, and of the post-fascist party Fratelli d’Italia. But the election system imposes long political negotiations, it often takes several days and several ballots for a name to win support. During the first three rounds (the ballot takes place by secret ballot), the candidate must obtain two-thirds of the votes of the electoral college – senators, deputies and representatives of the regions – while from the fourth round, a simple majority is sufficient.

To go to the end and reach a simple majority, Silvio Berlusconi still lacks about fifty votes. For several weeks, he has been leading a very offensive campaign with deputies and senators: during the Christmas holidays, he bombarded them with phone calls. Since Tuesday January 11, he has been in Rome to meet them and convince them in person, picking up their votes one by one, “like nuts” says the press who laugh at what they call a “operation squirrel”.

Berlusconi has not changed his method: he announced that if it was not him but Mario Draghi, the current Prime Minister, who was elected president, his party would withdraw from the government, which would lead to early parliamentary elections. .

Outgoing President Sergio Mattarella, who is leaving after a seven-year term, was instrumental in the arrival of Mario Draghi as head of a national unity government in February, following the collapse of the previous coalition .

At the antipodes of the Berlusconian style, Mario Draghi, former boss of the European Central Bank (ECB), 74, is considered by commentators as the best placed to take the post. He presents himself as a consensual personality capable of bringing people together across political lines, “a grandfather in the service of institutions “.

But he currently has a lot to do to manage the vast post-pandemic recovery fund of more than 190 billion euros from the European Union, and to implement the reforms that Brussels expects in return. Many believe that he must remain in office until the legislative elections scheduled for 2023 to pass the changes deemed essential to Italy’s economic recovery.

Berlusconi, for his part, tries to present himself as a reasonable moderate, a competent statesman capable of containing the excesses of the anti-European far right. He even made overtures to MPs from the 5 Star Movement (M5S), the most numerous in Parliament – whom he described in 2018 as being so poorly qualified that he would not even hire them “to clean his toilet“.

The enraged squirrel against the quiet grandfather: it is the very duel “comedia dell’arte” which will animate the small theater of Italian political life over the next few weeks.


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