Berlusconi will never make Caesar

Though his party did well in the elections, the self-inflated Italian leader has beeen cut down to size.

The European election result in Italy is a big setback for Silvio Berlusconi and hugely important for the country's future. The prime minister's Freedom People movement took just over 35% of the vote. In any other country, that might be considered as a pretty satisfactory result. It was only a couple of points below the Freedom People's showing at the general election and put Berlusconi's party nine points ahead of the main opposition group, the Democratic party. But Italy is not just any other country. And what counts here today are the expectations that had been aroused. Before the eruption of the sex scandals in which Berlusconi has been embroiled, polls were registering a powerful surge in support for both the prime minister and the Freedom People – the result of the government's vigorous law-and-order programme (tinged with anti-immigrant overtones) and, not least, Berlusconi's own ability to talk himself up. For weeks, he has been claiming an approval rating of more than 70%, and implying that that gives him a mandate for a radical constitutional reform. His objective – a presidential system like that of the US or France. And no prizes for guessing who he saw filling the role of Obama, Sarkozy or, as critics preferred, Kim Jong-il. At one point, Berlusconi said he was hoping for 45% of the vote in the European election, though he and his associates later trimmed the target to 40%. Today's result leaves them well short of even their revised aim. Freedom People, on its first outing as a fully unified party, was shown to be not the mass movement that would waft Silvio Berlusconi to quasi-imperial status, but a party like any other; a government party with a big lead, but a party. In the north, Freedom People voters switched to the Northern League in large number. In the south, they just stayed away. It suggests either that the recession is taking more of a toll on the Berlusconi government than had previously been believed. Or, that the old saw about how Italians don't care about their politicians' private lives is not true (or no longer true). Perhaps it is a bit of both. At all events, Berlusconi has been cut back down to size. Not the least important facet of the result is that the Italy of Principles party, led by his most implacable critic, Antonio Di Pietro, did extremely well, almost doubling its share of the vote. Berlusconi remains Italy's prime minister. But after today's results he is no longer a Julius Caesar-in-waiting.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/09/berlusconi-europe-elections-italy