A comedy that has gone on too long

Silvio Berlusconi under pressure

He is a survivor. But if he cares about his country, Italy’s prime minister should head towards the exit quickly

Nov 4th 2010

ANOTHER week, another forecast that Silvio Berlusconi may go. Italy’s 74-year-old prime minister, first elected 16 years ago, is a famously canny fighter. A new sex scandal, more mutinous murmurs by his former allies, the threat of an early election, claims that he abused his position by telephoning the police before they released a teenage girl suspected of theft: none of these may prove enough to lever the obstinate old goat out. But there is now an unmistakable feeling in the Italian air of an era drawing to a close.

Mr Berlusconi’s defenders are blaming the newspapers, the magistrates, the foreigners and his arch-rival (and erstwhile supporter), Gianfranco Fini, for their man’s difficulties. The Milan prosecutor has decided that the police followed proper procedures in releasing the girl. But nobody can disguise the truth that Mr Berlusconi’s approval rating among voters has hit new lows, or that Mr Fini controls enough votes in the lower house to bring down the government. Even some in the prime minister’s camp are starting to wonder if he has become such a liability that he ought now to go (see article).

Oddly some of Mr Berlusconi’s longtime critics are among those fretting that this would be unwise. They support the view he expressed this week that, at a time of new bond-market jitters and jangling economic nerves, Italy would suffer “great harm” if he were ousted, because it would enter a new period of political instability. They note that, thanks partly to the skill of the finance minister, Giulio Tremonti, Italy has steered clear of the credit concerns that have engulfed other countries like Greece, Portugal and Ireland. This may not be the right time, they conclude, to rock the political boat.

It is a tempting argument, but it is wrong. For the stability that Mr Berlusconi’s continuation in office offers is illusory. Every new scandal saps his authority and exposes him (and, incidentally, his country) to renewed ridicule. With Mr Fini preparing to launch a new party and the Northern League, another party in the coalition, eager for an early election, the threat of a government collapse has become perpetual. The debt markets may not be concerned about Italy right now, because it skipped the banking and property bubbles that burst elsewhere. But in the longer term the colossal size of Italy’s public debt, the pension and health-care burden arising from its ageing population and its continuing loss of competitiveness are bigger worries than the odd bust bank.

Enough of the Burlesqueoni

In truth, what Mr Berlusconi really offers is not stability but stagnation. Far from steering Italy skilfully past the many dangers that confront it, his government has become almost totally paralysed. Mr Berlusconi’s legal and other preoccupations have distracted him and his ministers from the pursuit of any of the hard reforms that are necessary to restore the economy to long-term health. Even the first triumph of his current government, trumpeted so loudly after it was formed in 2008, the clearing up of garbage in and around Naples, has proved ephemeral: the stinking piles of rubbish are back.

This newspaper opposed Mr Berlusconi from the start. Many Italians have disagreed with us, convinced that only an outsider could bring change. Now they have nothing: just an ageing Lothario clinging to power. Radical reform demands a new champion, whether from left, right or centre, to take on entrenched vested interests and push the cause.

At the end of Leoncavallo’s opera “Pagliacci”, Canio the clown steps forward, after stabbing Silvio, to tell the audience “La commedia è finita.” The curtain should now fall on the tragicomic reign of today’s Silvio, too.

http://www.economist.com/node/17416756?story_id=17416756&CFID=148214071&CFTOKEN=11902969