Silvio Berlusconi in conferenza stampa: "Dedicherò il mio tempo a cambiare l'Italia". E attacca Monti: "Con lui recessione senza fine"

Pubblicato: 27/10/2012

Prima la decisione di non ricandidarsi, poi la condanna a 4 anni per il processo Mediaset, ora la frase "in campo per riformare la giustizia" che significa una nuova, ennesima, discesa politica dell'ex premier Silvio Berlusconi. Tanto da dar vita, su twitter, all'hashtag #ancoratu.

In Villa è stato accolto da un applauso. Nelle prime file siedono, fra gli altri, Michela Vittoria Brambilla, Daniela Santanchè, Paolo Romani, Tiziana Maiolo e Roberto Lassini (che è stato indagato per i manifesti con scritto 'Via le Br dalle Procure'), il coordinatore lombardo del Pdl Mario Mantovani e Nicolò Ghedini. Ecco le sue parole (diretta video):

CONFERMO CHE NON MI CANDIDO "Confermo, non mi presento alla presidenza del consiglio in modo da facilitare l'assemblazione di tutti i moderati". "Si terranno nel nostro partito le primarie, sarà un confronto di personalità e idee molto positivo da cui arriveranno protagonisti degni di rappresentare i moderati al governo".

VOGLIO DEDICARE MASSIMA ATTENZIONE AL PAESE"Intendo dedicare la massima parte del mio tempo al mio Paese e continuare l'opera di modernizzazione che ho iniziato nel '94''

SENTENZA INCREDIBILE "Ieri il tribunale di Milano ha presentato una sentenza che ho già definito non solo inaspettata ma incredibile e intollerabile nella quale vengo presentato come un individuo, nonostante la mia storia, dotato di naturale capacità a delinquere. Non credo di poter accettare una cosa del genere, credo si sia passato il limite".

GERMANIA Berlusconi parla dei rapporti con Germania e Francia. "La Germania ha forzato il Consiglio dei capi governo ad alcune decisioni che io non ho mai condiviso". "Ho deciso di dire qui le cose che non ho mai palesato, ma che fanno parte della realtà. A partire dal comportamento egemonico della Germania all'interno dell'Unione europea", che " dovrebbe essere "solidale e non egoistica, come invece viene intesa dalla sua dirigenza". "I sorrisi di Sarkozy e della Merkel" sono stati "il tentativo di assassinio della mia credibilità internazionali"

IL PIL E LA RECESSIONE "Il nostro pil emerso deve essere sommato al pil sommerso, è una caratteristica della nostra economia, è prodotto. Così noi si andava a oltre 2 mila miliardi di pil e si scendeva sotto il 100% del debito. L'Italia si pone al secondo posto per solidità economica dopo la Germania". Per questo motivo imporre allIitalia misure rigide volute dal fiscal compact "significa portare l'economia alla recessione".

MONTI DOVEVA CAMBIARE LA COSTITUZIONE "Il governo dei tecnici ebbe per nostro preciso invito il compito di cambiare la costituzione. Ma nessuno di questi cambiamenti è stato presentato"

TECNICI HANNO ADOTTATO EGEMONIA GERMANIA E CI PORTANO A SPIRALE RECESSIONE "Il nostro governo dei tecnici ha adottato al 100 per 100 le indicazioni della Germania egemone, anche sul piano dell'economia. Il governo dei tecnici ha introdotto misure che portano l'economia in una spirale recessiva"

STATO DI POLIZIA TRIBUTARIA "Le misure messe in atto dal governo Monti sono quasi una "estorsione fiscale tipico di uno Stato di polizia tributaria"

ABROGARE IMU Abrogazione dell'Imu e impegno" a non mettere mai alcuna tassa sulla casa, che costituisce "il pilastro sicuro per ogni famiglia"

DITTATURA DEI MAGISTRATI: "E' UNA MAGISTRATO CRAZIA" "Basta con sentenze incredibili, questa è una magistratocrazia"

SENTENZA IERI PIU' FOLLE DI QUELLA DEL TERREMOTO "La sentenza che mi riguarda è ancora più folle di quella relativa ai magistrati"

"DECIDEREMO SE TOGLIERE FIDUCIA A GOVERNO MONTI" Silvio Berlusconi ha annunciato in conferenza stampa "che nei prossimi giorni, assieme ai miei collaboratori, decideremo se continuare o togliere la fiducia al governo"

"IO RESTO IN CAMPO" "Io non discendo in campo ma resto in campo perché non mi sono mai ritirato. Mi sono ritirato dalla candidatura alla presidenza del Consiglio. Continuerò a essere presidente del mio movimento - ha aggiunto - e lavorerò per assumere le decisioni con gli altri esponenti".

PRIMARIE PDL APERTE A TUTTI TRANNE CHE A ME "Le primarie del Pdl sono aperte a tutti tranne che al fondatore del Pdl"

PROCESSO RUBY SI BASA SU STUPIDAGGINI Il processo Ruby è un "procedimento scandaloso che si basa su delle stupidaggini"

TORNA IN TV "PRONTO AD ANDARE DA VESPA" "Riprenderò le mie presenze e interviste, la prego di volere comunicare al signor Vespa che sono disponibile ad accettare un invito".

MONTI? NON C'E' PIU' SPAZIO PER GOVERNO TECNICO "Mario Monti, se crederà di partecipare alle elezioni e di farsi eleggere a candidato premier, potrà svolgere il ruolo di presidente del Consiglio. Non credo che dopo questa sospensione di democrazia del governo tecnico ci sia ancora il posto e lo spazio per una indicazione per chiamata e non per elezione"

CON CASINI E MONTEZEMOLO UNIAMOCI PER BATTERE SINISTRA"Casini e Montezemolo sono da
considerarsi parte del centrodestra e solo le persone che non hanno buon senso non capiscono che un rassemblament dei moderati può battere la sinistra".

Berlusconi Is Found Guilty of Tax Fraud

By RACHEL DONADIO

Published: October 26, 2012

 Tony Gentile/Reuters

ROME — A court in Milan convicted former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of tax fraud on Friday and sentenced him to four years in prison. Mr. Berlusconi is also currently on trial over charges that he paid for sex with an underage prostitute. He has denied the accusation.

The ruling was Mr. Berlusconi’s fourth lower-court conviction, and the first since he stepped down as prime minister in November, after years in which his personal legal battles often eclipsed the work of his government. His four-year sentence was reduced to one year under a law aimed at reducing prison overcrowding.

Besides being a blow to Mr. Berlusconi personally, the ruling comes at a time when his center-right party is unraveling and Italy is in the throes of the most dramatic political transition since the early 1990s, when he first came to power. It was just two days ago that he announced that he would not lead his party in Italy’s next elections.

“It’s without a doubt a political sentence, the way so many other trials invented against me have been political,” Mr. Berlusconi said after Friday’s ruling, calling in to a news program on a channel he owns.

A lawyer for Mr. Berlusconi said the former prime minister would appeal the ruling, which must go through two more rounds of appeal before becoming definitive. It is unlikely that he will ever serve jail time. Even if a definitive ruling were reached before the statute of limitations in the case runs out next year, Mr. Berlusconi would enjoy immunity as long as he remained in the Parliament.

However, the judges also barred the former prime minister from holding public office for five years, a penalty that would be applied only if his conviction were upheld by the highest court. They also took the unusual step of reading the reasoning behind the verdict, which normally takes 60 to 90 days after a ruling. That could speed up the appeals.

On Wednesday, Mr. Berlusconi, 76, said he would not lead his People of Liberty party in Italy’s national elections next spring to replace the unelected technocratic government of Prime Minister Mario Monti, who has been guiding Italy through a perilous economic crisis. But he said that he would stay involved in politics.

The case at the heart of Friday’s ruling centered on a scheme in which Mr. Berlusconi and several other defendants used a series of offshore companies to buy the rights to broadcast American movies on Mr. Berlusconi’s private television networks and falsely declared the amount of the payments to avoid taxes. Prosecutors said the defendants then inflated the price for the television rights of some 3,000 films as they relicensed them internally to Mr. Berlusconi’s networks, pocketing the difference, which amounted to around 250 million euros, about $320 million. Mr. Berlusconi, who has major holdings in real estate, insurance, advertising and publishing, has been involved in dozens of legal cases over the years. In 1997 and 1998, when Mr. Berlusconi was the opposition leader, he was convicted by lower courts on charges of tax fraud and corruption.

All three previous lower-court convictions were either overturned on appeal or thrown out for lack of evidence — or the statute of limitations ran out before a definitive highest court ruling was reached.

Gaia Pianigiani contributed reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/27/world/europe/berlusconi-convicted-and-sentenced-in-tax-fraud.html?_r=1

Italian politics

Four more years

ON OCTOBER 26th, Italy’s former prime minister was found guilty of tax fraud. There was nothing new in this. He has been convicted three times before. But the Italian legal system is lenient (and it was made even more lenient by Mr Berlusconi’s government). Each time, his convictions—if not overturned on appeal—were ‘timed out’ by a statute of limitations.

On this occasion, Mr Berlusconi was given four years in jail. But (speaking of leniency) three were immediately knocked off by a retrospective 2006 amnesty. And there is scant chance the 76 year-old billionaire politician will serve what is left of his sentence.

Under Italian law, he has the right to two appeals before his conviction can be enforced. The appeals could take years to hear and it is a safe bet that before they have been completed, probably at the end of 2013 or the start of 2014, the whole process will be rendered futile by the time limits.

Yet, despite all this, and the fact that Mr Berlusconi had confirmed only two days earlier that he did not intend standing for prime minister in the next general election, his conviction made the front pages of news web sites as far away as Buenos Aires. Notwithstanding terrible violence in Afghanistan and Syria on Friday, both the BBC and Die Welt chose to give the top slot to Mr Berlusconi’s legal setback.

There is more to this than journalistic nostalgia for a leader who was nothing if not newsworthy. It reflects an increasingly sharp difference between internal and external perceptions of what is happening in Italy.

For months now, Italians have been consigning Mr Berlusconi and his works, if not to history, then to irrelevance. At first, he seemed not to realise what was happening. In June, appalled by the decline in support for his party, the People of Freedom (PdL), he drew the conclusion that it was because it no longer had the benefit of his undoubted charisma (last year, after losing his majority in parliament and stepping down as prime minister, Mr Berlusconi gave up the leadership of the PdL). He implied—indeed, all but announced—that he was coming back to take over the reins.

But his party’s ratings in the opinion polls continued stubbornly to fall. And in recent weeks it has looked as if a decline could be turning into a plunge: in several recent surveys, the PdL has garnered less support than the Five Star Movement of the comedian and blogger, Beppe Grillo.

The old Berlusconi magic is just not working. And his announcement on October 24th that he was standing aside marked a reluctant acceptance of something that has long since been clear to most of his fellow-Italians: that his long ascendancy over the public life of his country is at an end.

It does not, however, mean his courtroom woes are also at an end. Or that they will fail to increase the problems facing the PdL. Mr Berlusconi is a defendant in three other trials. By far the most discomforting is one in Milan in which he is accused of paying for sex with an underage girl and then covering up the alleged offence by taking improper advantage of his position as prime minister. For the ever-smiling tycoon, as for his party, the worst may yet be to come.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/newsbook/2012/10/italian-politics

The last thing Italy needs - Silvio Berlusconi will probably run for prime minister for a seventh time

Jul 21st 2012 | ROME

from the print edition | Europe

FEW things could be worse for Italy’s credibility (and creditworthiness) than for investors to spend the next nine months wondering if Silvio Berlusconi will return as prime minister. But that is increasingly likely.

Since late June, he has been teasing the public and media with increasingly blatant hints that he intends to be his party’s candidate at the next general election, to be held by the spring of 2013. He has still not said so publicly. But in an interview on July 14th he appeared to treat it as fact, saying he “would have preferred to have made the announcement later”.

The day before, his doctor said the 75 year-old billionaire was fit for the fray, though adding that Mr Berlusconi had gone on a diet to shed eight kilos. It then emerged the former prime minister was to hold a behind-closed-doors meeting with an international group of liberal economists. His plan, said aides, was to relaunch his party, the Freedom People (PdL), on the basis of the free-market principles he espoused when he first entered office in 1994, but which he signally failed to apply in the nine subsequent years when he governed Italy.

In another sign that Mr Berlusconi is aiming for a new start, the PdL’s general secretary, Angelino Alfano, said he thought Nicole Minetti, an embarrassing reminder of the former prime minister’s recent past, should resign as a regional councillor in Lombardy. Ms Minetti, a former showgirl, is on trial for allegedly supplying prostitutes for so-called bunga-bunga parties at Mr Berlusconi’s mansion near Milan. Her co-defendants have already conveniently disappeared from public life. One, a television newscaster, was sacked from Mr Berlusconi’s network. The other, a show-business agent, is in jail charged with bankruptcy offences.

If nothing else, recent events have shown that the media tycoon still has a sublime ability to draw attention to himself. By the time Ms Minetti, who had fled to Paris, reappeared in a blaze of photographers’ flashes, a nation that had spent months fretting over sovereign bond yields was once again discussing Mr Berlusconi, his intentions and his shapely lady friends.

But does this mean that, as in the late 1990s and mid-2000s, he can return from political near-death? In the eight months since he left office, naming Mr Alfano as the PdL’s prime-ministerial candidate, his party’s popularity has plunged. Its latest poll ratings were little better than those of the maverick Five Star Movement led by Beppe Grillo, a blogger and comedian.

There are three possible reasons. One is that the PdL is paying the price for its parliamentary support for Mario Monti’s technocratic government and the government’s EU-mandated austerity measures, which have hit many people very hard. But the centre-left Democratic Party has also backed Mr Monti and not suffered to anything like the same extent.

A second theory is that the PdL is lost without its founder. But it can be equally well argued that it is languishing because Mr Berlusconi has never really taken a back seat and allowed Mr Alfano to enhance his standing with the electorate.

A third possible reason for the PdL’s plight, which Mr Berlusconi is doubtless loth to consider, is that a growing number of Italians realise that the eight years between 2001 and 2011 when he was in power were a disaster for their country’s economy. He introduced few structural reforms and, largely as a result, Italy’s economic growth was negligible.

In a poll released on July 9th by Termometro Politico, a website, 72% of those questioned said they would never vote for Mr Berlusconi again. The poll also suggested that the allegations regarding his private life had ravaged a core element of his traditional constituency. It found that 53% of the women who voted for him in the latest general election, in 2008, said they would not do so again.

Mr Berlusconi, then, is setting off on the comeback trail from a lower and more unpromising point than ever before. But his resources are virtually boundless, his communication is outstanding—and he has a strong card to play if he chooses. Italians are inevitably writhing under Mr Monti’s tax increases and spending cuts. A promise to reverse the present government’s policies could also reverse the PdL’s fortunes in the polls. However alarming the spectre of his return, Mr Berlusconi’s chances should not be written off just yet.

http://www.economist.com/node/21559371

Processo Ruby, Berlusconi in aula "Mantengo ragazze rovinate da pm"

L'ex premier a Palazzo di Giustizia per l'udienza. Deve rispondere di concussione e prostituzione minorile. Sui travestimenti: "Erano gare di burlesque". "Le donne sono esibizioniste". "I costumi regalati da Gheddafi". La testimonianza di diversi funzionari della polizia. L'agente Iafrate rivela che la giovane marocchina le disse che non era nipote Mubarak

MILANO -  "Mantengo queste ragazze, perché hanno avuto la vita rovinata da questo processo", ha detto Silvio Berlusconi in un intervallo del processo sul caso Ruby ¹, in corso a Milano, in cui è imputato per concussione e prostituzione minorile. A sorpresa questa mattina l'ex premier è arrivato a Palazzo di Giustizia per assistere all'udienza. 

Parlando delle giovani ha detto che in molte hanno perso il lavoro, "il fidanzato e forse non lo troveranno più" e in alcuni casi i genitori "hanno chiuso il loro esercizio commerciale". Una trentina di ragazze si sono vista la vita "rovinata" dal processo in quanto hanno avuto "come unico torto accettare un invito a cena da me". In serata, tornando sul tema del mantenimento delle giovani ha aggiunto: "Quando uno ha una barca non deve preoccuparsi di quanto costa l'equipaggio". 

"I travestimenti erano gare di burlesque". L'ex premier ha ribadito che a casa sua si tenevano solo "cene eleganti" e che dopo cena si scendeva al piano sottostante in un locale "che era la vecchia discoteca dei miei figli". A chi gli ha fatto notare che le ragazze facevano spettacoli con travestimenti da poliziotta e altro.

Berlusconi ha sottolineato "facevano gare di burlesque ³e si esercitavano".  E ancora: "Le ragazze, le donne sono per loro natura esibizioniste".  In seguito ha parlato di atmosfera di "gioiosità, serenità e simpatia". Nel pomeriggio, rispondendo ancora una volta a una domanda sul burlesque, Berlusconi ha detto che riprenderebbe a fare "le gare di burlesque" a casa sua, perché è uno spettacolo che a lui piace molto "meno estremo di quello che si vede in Tv e in teatro". 

"I costumi regalati da Gheddafi". L'ex premier ha dichiarato che non c'era nessun travestimento da suora, ma che le giovani ospiti delle cene per mascherarsi avevano a disposizione una sessantina di costumi, regalati a Berlusconi dall'ex leader libico Muhammar Gheddafi. Ha inoltre ribadito di non aver aver "mai pagato una donna per fare sesso". Durante la sua deposizione ha aggiunto che era suo "dovere fare quella telefonata in questura" perchè la ragazza gli era stata segnalata come la nipote di Mubarak. 

"Ruby? Mi ha fatto pena". L'ex premier ha risposto a una domanda sui suoi rapporti con Ruby. "Mi ha fatto pena. Ha raccontato una vita drammatica dicendo di essere stata buttata fuori dalla famiglia, perché si era convertita alla religione cattolica. Si era costruita un'esistenza fantasiosa, vergognandosi della realtà. Decidemmo di aiutarla per evitare che si prostituisse".  Ora però, ha aggiunto prima di lasciare Palazzo di Giustizia, non viene dato più alcun aiuto alla ragazza, perché "ha trovato una persona perbene che l'ha sposata".

"Il video di Fini? Una balla". Alla domanda del video su il presidente della Camera, Gianfranco Fini, l'ex premier ha risposto: "E' una balla", smentendo di avere mai fatto vedere un video satirico con protagonista Fini a una delle sue ospiti. A parlarne, sentita come teste in aula, era stata una delle ragazze che frequentavano villa San Martino, Imane Fadhil. Il  racconto della giovane marocchina viene smentito da Berlusconi che chiude il discorso con un "stiamo valutando una denuncia per diffamazione".

Le testimonianze. Oggi in aula è stato il momento delle testimonianze di Giorgia Iafrate, Pietro Ostuni e altri due funzionari di polizia di turno in questura a Milano la notte tra il 27 e il 28 maggio 2010. Quel giorno Berlusconi telefonò più volte chiedendo che Ruby, fermata per un furto, fosse affidata alla consigliera regionale Pdl Nicole Minetti. L'ex presidente del Consiglio motivò la richiesta dicendo che la giovane marocchina era la nipote dell'ex presidente egiziano Hosni Mubarak.

Il colloquio con la ragazza. "Fu Ruby a dirmi di non essere la nipote di Mubarak, ma che a volte si spacciava come tale" ha dichiarato Giorgia Iafrate al banco dei testimoni. Secondo la teste, dunque, era chiaro fin dall'inizio che la giovane non era la nipote del presidente egiziano.   "Non ci fu nemmeno bisogno di attivare il canale diplomatico", ha precisato Iafrate  spiegando di aver riferito al capo di gabinetto della Questura di Milano Ostuni del suo colloquio con la ragazza marocchina.
 La telefonata di Berlusconi. Del fatto che Ruby non fosse la nipote di Mubarak era convinto anche Ostuni. In aula il capo di gabinetto ha raccontato della telefonata che ricevette la sera del 27 maggio quando il caposcorta gli passò al telefono l'allora premier, Berlusconi. "Mi disse che c'era una ragazza in questura che gli era stata segnalata come nipote di Mubarak e che sarebbe arrivata la consigliera parlamentare Nicole Minetti che si sarebbe fatta carico della situazione per l'affidamento".

Il ruolo della Minetti. La ragazza fu affidata a Nicole Minetti tra le 2 e 2,30, mentre la famiglia della minore in Sicilia fu contattata solo verso le 4 del 28 maggio.  Dal racconto di Ostuni emerge che "non c'era altra possibilità oltre all'affidamento alla signora Minetti dal momento che mancavano posti disponibili nelle comunità e che non si poteva trattenere una minore in questura per la notte". Il pm dei minori aveva dato indicazioni di identificare con certezza la ragazza e di affidarla a qualcuno solo dopo aver adempiuto a tale dovere.

(20 aprile 2012)

http://www.repubblica.it/politica/2012/04/20/news/processo_ruby_berlusconi_in_aula-33624884/index.html?ref=search

The 100 Most Influential People in the World

Mario Monti    Prime Minister

By LARRY SUMMERS                                                Wednesday, Apr. 18, 2012

They are the people who inspire us, entertain us, challenge us and change our world. Meet the breakouts, pioneers, moguls, leaders and icons who make up this year's TIME 100

At this moment, Mario Monti is the world's most important ex-economics professor. True, Ben Bernanke's monetary-policy decisions will move the needle in the U.S., but the fate of a continent rests on Monti's shoulders. If he can continue to institute meaningful reform, Europe will successfully weather the debt crisis. If he cannot, the vision of a unified Europe will unravel.Already he has pulled Italy from the ledge by standing up to vested interests — taxi drivers, pharmacists and railway workers — to increase competition and renew economic vitality. Instituting these reforms took great courage, particularly in a country where leaders have too often proved beholden to powerful lobbies. He has taken painful steps to cut spending, raise taxes and reduce Italy's budget deficit. As a result, the nation's bond yields have tightened significantly, and imminent fears about the monetary union's collapse have subsided.Monti, 69, knows that growth is what is most important. Reforming Italy's two-tier labor system to foster such growth will be his most arduous task. However, given the courage and dexterity he's displayed thus far, I trust that he's up to the challenge. The stakes could hardly be higher.Summers is a former Treasury Secretary and current professor at Harvard University

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2111975_2111976_2111997,00.html

Berlusconi to abandon frontline politics

February 3, 2012 3:46 pm

By Guy Dinmore and Giulia Segreti in Rome

Silvio Berlusconi has declared he is “stepping aside” from frontline Italian politics, revealing he has no intention of running again as prime minister.

In his first interview since resigning amid turmoil on financial markets in November, Mr Berlusconi spoke to the Financial Times at his Rome residence on subjects from what he called a media-inspired furore over his “bunga bunga” parties to his anger at “leftwing” magistrates hounding him in the courts and his drive to promote political and judicial reforms.

Mr Berlusconi also gave his strongest endorsement to date of the technocratic government led by Mario Monti which took over from his own, in particular its intention to implement labour market reforms opposed by trade unions.

Mr Berlusconi’s praise for Mr Monti – uttered with no conditions attached, although with some reservations over tax increases imposed in December – is likely to please investors and European leaders concerned that Italy’s former prime minister might try to destabilise the new government and stage a political comeback.

“I have now stepped aside, even in my party,” Mr Berlusconi said, noting his three election victories since 1994 had made him Italy’s longest serving postwar prime minister. His centre-right People of Liberty party is entering a transition period after 18 years under his leadership.

Mr Berlusconi said he resigned in November because he had been attacked “by an obsessive campaign by the national and foreign media that blamed me personally and the government for the high spread of Italian state bonds and the crisis on the stock market”.

“After having evaluated the causes of the crisis, which did not rest in Italy but in Europe and the euro, I believed that if I had stayed in government I would have damaged Italy as we would have had more terrible media campaigns,” he said.

“With a sense of responsibility, though having a majority in both houses of parliament … I stepped aside and with elegance.”

An animated Mr Berlusconi insisted that he was “still young” at 75, showing a bruise he said came from playing ice hockey with Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister. But Mr Berlusconi indicated that he would be getting too old to run for prime minister again in elections expected in the spring of 2013.

Instead Mr Berlusconi reiterated his backing for Angelino Alfano, the 41-year-old former justice minister from Sicily and secretary of his People of Liberty party, as his heir apparent. But for the first time he also made clear that the party, still the largest in parliament, would hold primaries to choose its candidate for prime minister.

Mr Berlusconi, a billionaire media mogul, showed he had no intention of quitting politics entirely, signalling that he would remain influential behind the scenes as the party’s “founding father”. He also said he might stand for election as a member of parliament, saying that opinion polls gave him much higher ratings than France’s Nicolas Sarkozy or Angela Merkel in Germany.

“I still have strong popular backing, almost twice as much as my colleagues Merkel and Sarkozy,” he said. “In opinion polls, I personally have 36 per cent support. If I walk out in the street I stop the traffic. I am a public danger and I cannot go out to do the shopping!”

Mr Berlusconi’s declarations – which will doubtless be met with scepticism by his critics – could throw wide open the race to succeed the unelected Mr Monti who has also made clear that he will not stand for office when his mandate is over.

Mr Alfano’s bid for the party leadership is not assured. And the centre-left Democratic party, led by Pierluigi Bersani, is sorely divided over Mr Monti’s proposed labour reforms. Commentators anticipate a wholesale shake-up of Italian politics, with attention focusing on whether Corrado Passera – the former head of Intesa Sanpaolo, a major bank, chosen as industry minister by Mr Monti – will decide to run for office.

Showing flashes of his former combative self, Mr Berlusconi said Italy’s postwar constitution made the country virtually ungovernable and needed reforms to give the prime minister more authority, cut the number of small parties in parliament and limit the influence of what he called a leftist-dominated judiciary that meddled in politics.

“The hope is that this government, which is supported for the first time by the whole of parliament, will have the chance to propose great structural reforms, starting from the state’s institutional architecture, without which we cannot think of having a modern and truly free and democratic country,” he said.

While attacking the foreign media in particular for damaging his image abroad over his alleged personal scandals, Mr Berlusconi said he was “serene” about the outcome of his two separate trials on charges – which he denies – of corrupting his former UK lawyer to give false evidence, and having a relationship with an alleged underage prostitute.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2012.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/65784254-4e6e-11e1-8670-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1lMErflea