Something new in the Italian Air! At last!

Berlusconi...

He is something new. Even politicians who declared eternal love followed by eternal hate are now backing his return to seat as Prime Minister of this shameless country. 18 years later we still have this man around... 18 years! and they talk about instability! I guess no democratic country has ever seen the same people in power for two decades and more. But this can just be the proof that we are not a democratic country, after all...

While the Speaker of the Senate is trying to form a government to reform the Electoral law, Berlusconi and his allies are now pushing towards the elections. In the meantime the small UDC centrist party has split and another party has been formed... How nice!

Anyway, read what the Int'l Herald Tribune has to say and if this is not enough read the Economist that can have another 5 years of go at one of the oddest figures of the Italian history

In Italy, the return of Berlusconi, the 'brutta figura'
By Ian Fisher and Elisabetta Povoledo
Friday, February 1, 2008

ROME: For Silvia Tomassini, owner of a boutique in Rome's ancient center, Silvio Berlusconi is "arrogant." At 71, he is too old. He is "a strange politician, not a normal one," she says, who endlessly commits "brutta figura," which loosely means you cannot take the man anywhere nice.

Yet when elections come again to Italy - and they may soon because the center-left government of Prime Minister Romano Prodi fell last week - Tomassini will vote for Berlusconi. Polls show that nearly two years after he lost the prime minister's office, Berlusconi would probably win. In Tomassini's case, she does not love him but thinks he cares for working people. Plus she hates the other side.

"He's not a person of class or culture," she said. "But he's better than the center-left."

When Berlusconi - Italy's richest man, its media king and the leader of the political center-right - won election in 2001, he promised something new: An outsider entrepreneur, he would bring action and hope to do-nothing politics.

Having lived through five recent years with Berlusconi as prime minister, most Italians know pretty clearly what they will be getting. He is now less a promising novelty than one option among the few open to voters, polarizing Italians into nearly equal camps for and against him.

Those who oppose him are appalled that, knowing what they do, Italians could even think of choosing him again. The list of complaints is long, starting from his unconventional oratory - "I am the Jesus Christ of politics," he said in 2006. "I sacrifice myself for everyone." - and ending up, inevitably, with what critics contend is his corruption.

"We've seen Berlusconi at work and we've seen that above all he's got his own interests at heart, passing tailor-made laws to avoid trouble or get advantages," said Eugenio Scalfari, a former editor in chief of La Repubblica, a liberal newspaper that has strongly opposed Berlusconi.

Scalfari cited, as an example, Berlusconi's acquittal this week on false-accounting charges in the case of the sale of the SME food conglomerate. The court's decision was based on the fact that the charges were considered a lesser criminal offense under changes made to the legal code in 2002 by the Berlusconi government.

Supporters, if several degrees less fervent than years ago, point to what they say were real, if limited, accomplishments in his term, which ended in 2006. Economic growth may have been zero, but he lasted a full five years, a record in Italy, bringing a new level of political stability.

He has been given credit for nurturing a more-or-less bipolar politics, divided into two recognizable sides. And he remains the leader of the center-right, making him the only choice when an unpopular center-left government like Prodi's falls.

"There's nobody else - and he's very popular," said Paolo Guzzanti, a journalist and senator in Berlusconi's party, Forza Italia. "Berlusconi is hated for the same reasons he is beloved: He is an outspoken man. He is still considered not a political person, even if he has been in politics since 1994. He is always unpredictable, breaking old games and suggesting a new way."

Nearly 14 years after he served his first, brief term as prime minister, Berlusconi's well-financed machine is showing signs of wear: He had a pacemaker implanted after he collapsed in public in 2006. His dyed and ever-more-robust hair, his plastic surgery, his oddly reddish face makeup (television viewers could see the line on his neck in a recent interview) all remain part of Italy's running national chuckle.

And his allies, never completely loyal, have come scrambling back reluctantly since Prodi fell. Late last year, one key member of the coalition, the suave and articulate Gianfranco Fini, head of the National Alliance, declared that he had broken forever with Berlusconi. It was, he said, "a closed case."

"He is a man with a very strict scale of moral values, and in first place are his own personal interests," Fini was quoted in La Repubblica as telling a friend. The history behind the split is typically complicated: Fini was reacting in part to Berlusconi's public and failed effort to bring down Prodi's government in November. Also, one of Berlusconi's three television stations broadcast an embarrassing video of Fini's new girlfriend, a showgirl and lawyer, with a former lover.

While Berlusconi and his allies lead in most polls published in recent weeks, he is only the likely winner - not the certain one. He will probably face the popular mayor of Rome, Walter Veltroni, who is media savvy and nearly 20 years younger than Berlusconi. Some of the polls have shown the new Democratic Party, which Veltroni leads, just a bit behind Berlusconi and his allies.

Next week, the Senate president, Franco Marini, will decide whether there is enough support in Parliament to create a temporary government or, as Berlusconi advocates, call elections as soon as possible.

In the end, many Italians say the main issue is not so much Berlusconi but the Italian electoral system itself, a system that offers few choices for voters.

Emilio Giannelli, a popular political cartoonist who depicts Berlusconi as a cunning dwarf in platform shoes, said he cannot work up excitement to begin drawing him again.

"Even for political cartoonists change is good because these eternal personalities bore even those who have to draw them," Giannelli said. "We have been drawing Berlusconi for 18 years, and we're tired of it."

Asked which Italian politician he might prefer to draw as prime minister, Giannelli, who like Berlusconi is 71, said: "I want young people, new people, people with new ideas.

"I would happily go into retirement if I saw young and capable people in power."

Daniele Pinto contributed reporting from Rome.