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The Italian right
Rendering unto Caesar
Mar 26th 2009 | ROME
From The Economist print edition
His newly merged right-wing party entrenches Silvio Berlusconi in power
DELEGATES to the inaugural congress of the People of Freedom (PDL) party on March 27th can buy a new political souvenir: a Russian doll in the image of Silvio Berlusconi. Inside are progressively smaller dolls of the other prime ministers he has left behind in the past 15 years. The doll carries a message as troubling to critics as it is heartening to admirers: that Mr Berlusconi is no longer one of several political rivals, but Italy’s uncontested master.
Since he swept to power for the third time last year, opposition has melted like Alpine snow at winter’s end. In less than a year, the unions have split, the main opposition party has changed its leader and—thanks to the impact of a global economic crisis on a society in which politics and the economy are inextricably entwined—Mr Berlusconi has gained immense powers of patronage over Italy’s apprehensive bankers and industrialists.
The transformation of the PDL from an electoral alliance into a real party is but the latest milestone in his triumphant advance. At its own congress on March 22nd the National Alliance (AN), which grew out of Italy’s neo-fascist movement, formally wound itself up and merged with Mr Berlusconi’s old party, Forza Italia. Mr Berlusconi has long said his dream was to create a single party of the right. That dream still eludes him, as the anti-immigrant Northern League remains determinedly independent. But the new PDL takes him a big step closer. The right now has a dominant movement comparable to the left’s Democratic Party, pushing Italy nearer a two-party system.
Some of Mr Berlusconi’s associates fret that heading a more heterogeneous party could turn the prime minister from a leader into an arbiter. That is what happened to the Democratic Party’s first leader, Walter Veltroni, who acquired a politically lethal reputation for wishy-washy indecisiveness. But the bigger fear is that the freedom in the new party’s title might be that of Mr Berlusconi to do whatever he likes. Francesco Storace, a former Berlusconi minister who left the AN to found his own, unambiguously far-right party, said he looked forward to seeing what happened when “it becomes clear only Berlusconi rules”. The prime minister is not used to being questioned by his followers. He created Forza Italia as a vehicle for his own ambition. At the start, most of its top people were his employees. AN, by contrast, is a party with a strong tradition of internal debate and dissent.
For many years, Mr Berlusconi’s heir-apparent has been AN’s leader, Gianfranco Fini. But after the 2008 election he was made speaker of the Chamber of Deputies. Since then, he has become a fierce and, for the prime minister, exasperating champion of the legislature, while appearing to slip rapidly leftward. He has decried Mr Berlusconi’s use of votes of confidence to rush through bills without full debate and says the right is in danger of succumbing to “Caesarism”. He has criticised plans for government-authorised vigilante patrols, and deplored as “immoral and unjust” a measure allowing doctors to report illegal immigrants to the police.
There has even been speculation that Mr Fini might position himself as a standard-bearer of libertarianism within the PDL. Yet at the AN congress he unequivocally endorsed Mr Berlusconi’s leadership. For the moment, the ever-smiling, ever-tanned media tycoon remains a Caesar with no Brutus in sight.
Rendering unto Caesar
Mar 26th 2009 | ROME
From The Economist print edition
His newly merged right-wing party entrenches Silvio Berlusconi in power
DELEGATES to the inaugural congress of the People of Freedom (PDL) party on March 27th can buy a new political souvenir: a Russian doll in the image of Silvio Berlusconi. Inside are progressively smaller dolls of the other prime ministers he has left behind in the past 15 years. The doll carries a message as troubling to critics as it is heartening to admirers: that Mr Berlusconi is no longer one of several political rivals, but Italy’s uncontested master.
Since he swept to power for the third time last year, opposition has melted like Alpine snow at winter’s end. In less than a year, the unions have split, the main opposition party has changed its leader and—thanks to the impact of a global economic crisis on a society in which politics and the economy are inextricably entwined—Mr Berlusconi has gained immense powers of patronage over Italy’s apprehensive bankers and industrialists.
The transformation of the PDL from an electoral alliance into a real party is but the latest milestone in his triumphant advance. At its own congress on March 22nd the National Alliance (AN), which grew out of Italy’s neo-fascist movement, formally wound itself up and merged with Mr Berlusconi’s old party, Forza Italia. Mr Berlusconi has long said his dream was to create a single party of the right. That dream still eludes him, as the anti-immigrant Northern League remains determinedly independent. But the new PDL takes him a big step closer. The right now has a dominant movement comparable to the left’s Democratic Party, pushing Italy nearer a two-party system.
Some of Mr Berlusconi’s associates fret that heading a more heterogeneous party could turn the prime minister from a leader into an arbiter. That is what happened to the Democratic Party’s first leader, Walter Veltroni, who acquired a politically lethal reputation for wishy-washy indecisiveness. But the bigger fear is that the freedom in the new party’s title might be that of Mr Berlusconi to do whatever he likes. Francesco Storace, a former Berlusconi minister who left the AN to found his own, unambiguously far-right party, said he looked forward to seeing what happened when “it becomes clear only Berlusconi rules”. The prime minister is not used to being questioned by his followers. He created Forza Italia as a vehicle for his own ambition. At the start, most of its top people were his employees. AN, by contrast, is a party with a strong tradition of internal debate and dissent.
For many years, Mr Berlusconi’s heir-apparent has been AN’s leader, Gianfranco Fini. But after the 2008 election he was made speaker of the Chamber of Deputies. Since then, he has become a fierce and, for the prime minister, exasperating champion of the legislature, while appearing to slip rapidly leftward. He has decried Mr Berlusconi’s use of votes of confidence to rush through bills without full debate and says the right is in danger of succumbing to “Caesarism”. He has criticised plans for government-authorised vigilante patrols, and deplored as “immoral and unjust” a measure allowing doctors to report illegal immigrants to the police.
There has even been speculation that Mr Fini might position himself as a standard-bearer of libertarianism within the PDL. Yet at the AN congress he unequivocally endorsed Mr Berlusconi’s leadership. For the moment, the ever-smiling, ever-tanned media tycoon remains a Caesar with no Brutus in sight.
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