This is the end of Berlusconi, right? Probably, yes

by Duncan McDonnell (EUI) 

(This article was originally published at The Conversation. Read the original article.) 

Colpevole. Guilty. On a hot August Thursday evening in Rome, after two decades of investigations and trials – many of which he escaped due to laws passed by his own governments – Silvio Berlusconi was finally and definitively convicted of a crime. It is a massive moment in modern Italian history. The man who has dominated the country’s politics since he formed his own party and won the 1994 general election is, according to Italy’s legal system, a criminal.

At a quarter to eight, several hours later than anticipated, the judges of the Court of Cassation – the final level of the justice system to which Berlusconi could appeal previous rulings in the case – confirmed the conviction for his role in tax fraud by his Mediaset group in the early part of the last decade (while he was prime minister). He won’t go to jail, but it seems certain he will spend a year either under house arrest or doing community service. He gets to choose which and has previously indicated that he would prefer house arrest.

The irony of this outcome is that Berlusconi has been undone by his failure to tackle his huge personal conflict of interests. If he really had given up control of his media empire when he entered politics in early 1994, he would not find himself liable now for its actions. Instead, the judges decided that he had retained a level of involvement in his companies which made him responsible for their misdeeds. His need to be the boss – the only real boss of his businesses and his political party – ultimately undid him.

Huge political problems

What the wider effects on Italian politics of this verdict will be remains to be seen. A second part of the sentence, barring him from public office, has been sent back to a lower court due to a technical issue over the ban’s length (this is likely to be reduced to no more than three years). But whatever the result of this, the verdict and sentence already pose huge problems not only for his own party – the Popolo della Libertà (PDL – People of Freedom) – but also for the centre-left Partito Democratico (PD – Democratic Party) which has been a reluctant coalition partner of the PDL since February’s inconclusive general election. Two parties which have despised one another for years have been forced to govern together.

It is hard to overstate Berlusconi’s influence on Italy’s political system during the past 20 years. He has been its fulcrum, with elections at national and even regional level based on whether you were for or against him. As the most recent centre-left coalition election slogan “L’Italia giusta” (“a just Italy”) suggested, their main unifying point has been that they are opposed to Berlusconi. On much else, they are bitterly divided. Likewise, for the smaller parties of the centre and right-wing, the key question in alliance strategies has been whether they could stomach standing alongside Berlusconi. Taking him out of the party system is therefore a bit like removing the bottom block of a jenga tower. We have no idea how the pieces might fall.

End of the PDL?

One possible outcome is that we are moving towards the end of the PDL. As a personal party, it has never had a “plan B” in which the “B” does not stand for “Berlusconi”. In a recent articlefor the academic journal Political Studies, I discussed what makes up a “personal party” and presented material from interviews conducted across Italy between 2009 and 2010 with PDL elected representatives and members. From these, two things were abundantly clear. The first was that Berlusconi’s authority was unquestioned and that no other party figures came even close to him. The second was that many in the party felt it was unlikely to survive the end of his time in politics. Even those that were more optimistic acknowledged that there was no obvious replacement for the founder-leader. As the 2008 campaign song “Thank goodness for Silvio” underlined, the spotlight has always been firmly on the leader, with little room for anyone else.

In the short term in Italy, we will see outpourings of joy from some and indignation from others. Berlusconi is an extremely divisive figure who attracts strong emotions, both negative and positive. Those who thought that he was a crook will see their views vindicated by this verdict. But so too will those who thought he was a dynamic individual persecuted by left-wing judges. This is a perception of Berlusconi which finds little favour abroad where he is better known for his gaffes and sexual antics. But it is one that is firmly rooted among a considerable minority of Italians for whom Berlusconi is a victim, not an offender.

So, as someone rang to ask me earlier, “this is the end of Berlusconi, right?” Probably, yes. But you can be sure he will go down fighting. Whether it is an appeal to the European Courts, orchestrated political turmoil or some other ingenious strategy entirely, he will come up with something. Because, for all his flaws, what Berlusconi has – and has always had in abundance compared to his weak-willed adversaries – are guts, stamina and invention. Expect to see these out in force in the weeks ahead. The Italian summer just got even hotter.

On Italy's streets, Five Star still twinkles

by Duncan McDonnell (EUI)

(This article was originally published at The Conversation. Read the original article.)

Emergency over. Nothing to see here folks. Move on. That was more or less the message on Tuesday morning from Italy’s main newspapers. They were talking about the supposedly poor results of the Movimento Cinque Stelle (M5S – Five Star Movement) in a round of local elections held on Sunday and Monday. An article in the main financial daily Il Sole 24Ore was typical, referring to Beppe Grillo’s “flop” and claiming that the M5S’s performance bolstered Enrico Letta’s new coalition government of his centre-left Partito Democratico (PD – Democratic Party) and Silvio Berlusconi’s Popolo della Libertà (PDL – People of Freedom).

In my last column, I wrote about how the abdication by mainstream political parties in favour of technocratic governments damages those same parties and leaves the door open for outsiders promising to restore responsive government to the people. Italy is a case in point. At the February general election, the M5S stunned observers by taking 26% of the vote, the best debut result in post-war Italian history (barring, obviously, the first set of elections). When the PDL and PD respectively abandoned government and opposition to support Mario Monti’s technocratic administration in November 2011, the M5S had been loitering around at under 5% in the polls.

Less than 18 months later, it found itself with 162 MPs (all of them novices) and over 8.6 million votes. The PD, widely expected to triumph easily, lost over three million voters compared to the 2008 general election. The PDL lost over six million. Although the PD’s centre-left coalition just about came first, it secured less than 30% overall and was unable to form a government. And so the PD leaders, like so many before them, climbed into bed beside Berlusconi. This in turn has left the M5S as the largest opposition force in parliament and better-placed than ever to point the finger at the PD and PDL as being essentially the same.

Yet, to read Italy’s columnists and listen to those on a wide variety of the country’s awful current affairs shows this week, one would think that the M5S bubble has already burst. Why? Well, in the very limited set of local elections this weekend, the M5S did nothing like as well as it had in February. Most notably, in Rome – the only one of Italy’s major cities to vote – the relatively unknown M5S candidate for mayor trailed in a distant third with 12.8%. A far cry, Italy’s media gleefully pointed out, from the 27.3% of the vote gained by the M5S in the same city at the general election. Grillo and his movement, so the logic now goes, are on the wane.

Not really. In reality, the media reaction is a mixture of analytical illiteracy and wishful thinking. Let’s take these in order. Firstly, comparing general and local elections as though they were the same is – to put not too fine a point on it – just dumb. In personalised contests for directly-elected mayors, it is entirely normal that a new political force whose local candidates do not have a high profile akin to those of longer-standing parties will be penalised. If we factor in that some of those who voted for the M5S in February made up their minds at the last minute and cannot be considered firm supporters, while others either don’t vote in local elections or decide on the basis of the candidate, then these local results seem less dramatic. Indeed, if you had said to most commentators a year ago that the M5S candidate would get a double digit result in a city like Rome in 2013, they would have laughed.

In fact, the key statistic from these elections was not the M5S result, but the turnout, which fell across the country. In Rome, it declined from 74% to 53%. The PDL sitting mayor in the city saw his number of votes drop by over 400,000. The PD’s candidate, although placing first, got 374,000 votes less than his predecessor in 2008. Italians, who have traditionally voted in greater numbers than most other citizens in Europe, are increasingly choosing not to do so. Disillusioned with the political offer, they are voting with their feet.

Secondly, since most of the Italian media have long held the view that Grillo and the M5S are little other than irresponsible and anti-democratic rabble-rousers, these results have given them something to grab onto. Their hope seems to be that, if they say “it’s falling apart” loud enough, it might come true. Of course, this is not entirely implausible. As I’ve already written here, the M5S is to some extent a victim of its own success. It would be no easy task for any new party to handle the organisational difficulties which such a swift rise brings. And this is even more so for a movement like the M5S which lacks a national central office and the co-ordinating vertical and horizontal structures of normal parties.

However, despite the media noise, the overall outlook for the M5S remains good. I spent most of last week in the north east of Italy, talking to elected representatives and local activists of the movement for a new research project. They are well aware of the difficulties they face. They know that transforming so rapidly from a grassroots organisation with no elected representatives into one of the country’s principal political forces poses massive challenges. And they know they need to join the dots between the different levels of an evolving movement and find better ways of communicating. Nonetheless, they are convinced that the PD and PDL have far bigger troubles.

They are right. Confidence in Letta’s administration is at 45% after its first month in office – the lowest of any new Italian government in the past 20 years. Meantime, the PD elites continue to do what they have always done best: fight among themselves in public over a range of issues from which reforms they should support to who should lead the party. As for the PDL, it continues to show no signs of being anything other than a personal party, still utterly dominated by Berlusconi and unlikely to last beyond his political lifespan. Both the PD and PDL thus have very serious question marks over their long-term futures. And, if they can look beyond rejoicing at the M5S results, they’ll see that just as in the general election, at the local elections they both lost another large chunk of voters compared to last time around. This week, they may be fiddling in Rome. But their parties continue to burn. 

Beppe Grillo