Silvio Berlusconi’s party Forza Italia (“go, Italy!”) suffered a setback on Wednesday, as three MPs defected to enter a somewhat banner-less mix of colleagues. This happened as the party, which has been losing its relevance slowly but steadily over the past years, is being galvanized by a set of victories handed to its 83-years-old leader.
Forza Italia qualifies as the most Europhile, centrist and moderate party of the centre-right coalition. The latter includes Matteo Salvini’s League and Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, both of which have been moving towards a harder right. Nonetheless, these three parties usually present a united front at the opposition, and together they hold a relative majority in polls – which would pave the way for a joint centre-right government, should the country come to vote in the near future.
Mr. Berlusconi’s political star has regained some of its splendour as his sensible stance during the lockdown received the praise of his political adversaries and even prime minister Giuseppe Conte. He had broken ranks with his opposition mates and supported the activation of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), shifting the balance of a battle that could make or break the current Italian government.
The leader’s MPs are also instrumental in passing the upcoming, hugely significant electoral reform, unattainable by the governing majority (Five Star Movement and Democratic Party, plus minor Italia Viva) alone. On a (perhaps) unrelated note, Mr. Berlusconi has been keeping in touch with a range of members from the other side of the political aisle, most of them Democrats, some of which have been his historical enemies.
Mr. Berlusconi’s personal fortunes have also taken a positive turn, as a recent court sentence overturned his 2013 fraud conviction, which ended up sabotaging his plans to remain in the Senate. Additionally, a sound bite of a now-deceased judge laterally connected to his implication was recently published. Its contents appear to strengthen the validity of the theory, long purported by Mr. Berlusconi and his supporters, that the conviction has been a staged coup all along. His party has thus been pushing to make him senator for life as a form of partial compensation.
Forza Italia’s leader is on a roll, but the party has been slipping in polls for the past few years; it currently sits at roughly 7%. However, Mr. Berlusconi’s flirts with the governing and centre-left forces may have given him a new role as a possible “safety net”, by virtue of his consistent number of MPs, which could keep the current government afloat should some of its members cease to support it.
Careful not to alienate his coalition partners on the right, Mr. Berlusconi insists that his preferred outcome is early elections – but appears less insistent in calling for those, as the other two centre-right leaders do, for the sake of national unity in times of crisis (and perhaps as a carefully calculated political move).
This political ballet, however, must have left some of his MPs unimpressed – hence the defections. Gaetano Quagliariello, Paolo Romani and Massimo Vittorio Berutti were all relevant party members. Mr. Quagliariello has said that the choice was dictated by “technical, not political reasons;” but more of his former colleagues may dislike their leader’s openings toward the current government forces.
The party is indissolubly tied to its leader, whom at this stage is vying for history, hoping to sign off his political career with key seats; namely, a place as life senator (which he may obtain if he plays his cards right in the next Italian presidential election, in 2022) and some power over public TV broadcasting (which would greatly help Mediaset, the media giant he founded and ceded to his sons).
A controversial figure in Italian politics, Silvio Berlusconi is once again proving his unquestionable ability to move and tie the strings of Italian political power. While he regains centrality, his ailing party can still become the next kingmaker and reshape the landscape of Italian politics – as he had already done countless times since his first election in 1994.
