Disavowed by a part of his close associates, who forced him to vote confidence in Enrico Letta’s government, and on the verge of being ousted from the Senate, which will decide this October 4 whether to strip him of his mandate, Silvio Berlusconi is heading towards an inevitable exit from the stage.
For the first time in twenty years, the political crisis was avoided, not thanks to or despite Berlusconi, but with absolute indifference to whatever the Cavaliere might have done or not done, trapped for days in a vicious spiral that made him change positions at least a dozen times.
The fact that at the end of a tumultuous parliamentary day, the right-wing leader, as if petrified, personally announced to the Senate, to everyone’s surprise, that he would vote confidence (even though he had ordered the resignation of his ministers on September 28 and had shortly before asked his senators to vote no confidence), had no influence on the outcome of the complex poker game that played out in recent days.
The dice were already cast, ever since the dissidents of the PDL announced they would not abandon the government, which could thus count on the support of a sufficient number of parliamentarians to secure a new majority at the Palazzo Madama [the seat of the Senate].
Thus, the main player in all political chapters of the past twenty years, the leader who had always managed to play a decisive role not only in his own camp but also in the opposing camp, has become unnecessary everywhere.
His charismatic leadership, which until the evening of September 30, had allowed him to avoid any form of internal debate, suddenly shattered.
Gone in the blink of an eye. Made a fool of, dismantled by the torrents of insults from right-wing voters on the Internet.
And there is no doubt that [the Deputy Prime Minister and number two of the PDL] Angelino Alfano played a key role in this crisis.
The one whom the Cavaliere blamed for the lack of ‘quid’ (an epithet for …adults) this time demonstrated that he had it in abundance! Furthermore, Mr. Berlusconi had forgotten that Alfano is a pure product of … Sicilian politics!
Beyond the wavering, the crisis of a weathered leadership had long been inscribed in the beginnings of political openness.
The birth, with the blessing of the President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, of an ‘emergency axis’ that proved unbreakable between Letta and Alfano, the Castor and Pollux of the government.
It is too early to say how far an episode of this magnitude, which was sudden and surprising only in appearance, will lead us.
But it is useless to hide it: the weight of Italian tradition and the protagonists of this new phase should not be underestimated.
In fact, there is a scent of Christian Democracy (the famous “white whale,” the party that dominated Italian political life for more than 50 years and within which the two new leaders were trained) in this phase of Italian politics.
Italians can now anticipate a competition between a center-right and a center-left that is much closer to those competing in most European countries.
