DA Times on line del 14/4/2008Berlusconi appears headed for third term as Italian PMSilvio Berlusconi appears headed for his third term in office after projections in Italy's general election gave him and his centre-right allies a lead in the Senate as well as in the Lower House.
Official projections gave Mr Berlusconi and the centre-Right 45.2 per cent in the Lower House, with 39.1 per cent for Mr Veltroni and the centre-Left. With 90 pr cent of results in, Mr Berlusconi's "People of Liberty" alliance was projected to have 47.1 per cent to 37.9 per cent for the Democratic Party, a fusion of liberals and former Communists.
Much will depend however on the final distribution of seats in the Senate, which is elected on a regional basis. Corriere della Sera said that the projections would give Mr Berlusconi a clear margin of 164 seats in the Senate to 139 for the centre-Left.
The last Government, a ten-party, centre-left coalition led by Romano Prodi, had a one-seat Senate majority and survived for only 20 months of its five-year term. Mr Prodi is bowing out of politics and has handed the leadership of the centre-Left to Mr Veltroni who, in a move designed to reassure many middle-class Italians, decided not to include the far-Left and the Greens in his alliance.
Analysts noted that the Northern League had performed unexpectedly well and would push for a powerful presence in any Berlusconi government. By contrast the Rainbow Alliance of Communists and Greens performed poorly.
Both Mr Berlusconi and Mr Veltroni vowed to cut taxes, reduce Italy's huge public debt and liberalise the public sector. A lacklustre campaign was enlivened only towards the end by Mr Berlusconi's reversion to typically extravagant remarks and promises. Most Italians weary of squabbling self serving politicians and chronic political instability turned out to vote with little enthusiasm.
Italians doubt whether the next government — the 62nd since the Second World War — will be able to reverse economic decline, stimulate investment, introduce deregulation and stem price rises for basic foods such as pasta and bread.
Symptoms of decline include the rubbish crisis in Naples, and the associated health scare over tainted buffalo mozzarella, as well as the faltering sale of the state airline AlItalia. Mr Berlusconi helped to undermine a bid by Air France KLM by advocating an "all-Italian" bid which has yet to materialise. One recent survey indicated that 51.4 per cent of Italians "feel worse off" today, compared with 36 per cent a year ago.
Mr Berlusconi, mocked by the Left for his efforts to disguise his height, age and receding hairline, has been implicated in a string of corruption investigations. He ran up a budget deficit equal to 4.4 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) during his last period in office.
That made his victory all the more remarkable. At 71 he was written off by his critics as too old, too prone to vulgar gaffes, too wedded to vested interests and too dogged by corruption allegations to be the leader chosen by Italians to reverse the country’s economic and social decline.
Many will have been persuaded by the anti-Veltroni points Mr Berlusconi hammered away at in the campaign - that Mr Veltroni is a former Communist, that when mayor of Rome he posed with film stars but failed to tackle illegal immigration and urban degradation, but above all that he was associated with the government of Romano Prodi, during which Italy was overtaken by Spain economically and rubbish piled up uncollected in the streets of Naples.
It was a vintage hustings performance by Mr Berlusconi, who began as a cruise ship entertainer, made a fortune in property development in Milan and then in television before entering politics in 1994 to revive the centre-Right after the collapse of Christian Democracy and “save the country from the Communists”.For many middle class Italians, fear and loathing of the Left proved stronger in this election than doubts about Mr Berlusconi and his more dubious allies such as the separatist Northern League.
They forgave his gaffes in the closing stages of the campaign: his assertion that right wing women were more attractive than those on the Left, his description of Francesco Totti, the revered captain of AS Roma, as “out of his mind” for backing the Centre Left candidate for mayor of Rome, and his praise of a convicted mafioso who was once on his staff as a “hero”.
Mr Veltroni, who at 52 is 20 years younger than Mr Berlusconi, was thought to have closed the gap partly because of his effective performance on television and at rallies in calling for change and a break with the past, and partly because Mr Berlusconi's attempt to project a more sober, elder statesman image was undermined by characteristic gaffes on the last lap.
Mr Veltroni's chances , however, have been hampered by his Communist past, of which Mr Berlusconi reminded voters repeatedly. He also sent a campaign booklet to all households in Rome saying that, as Mayor of Rome, Mr Veltroni had failed to tackle illegal immigration and urban degradation.
But Italians know that — as one of his aides put it during the campaign — Mr Berlusconi tends to “say the first thing that comes into his head”. During his last period in power,
from 2001 to 2006, he compared a German MEP to a “kapo” in a Nazi concentration camp, and suggested that the Danish Prime Minister should have an affair with his wife, the former actress Veronica Lario, because he was good looking.
He later had to apologise to his wife publicly for flirting openly with voluptuous television showgirls, offering to run off with one and marry another. When Tony and Cherie Blair visited him at his villa in Sardinia he wore a jaunty piratical bandana to hide a hair transplant. He told another visitor — Boris Johnson, then Editor of the Spectator — that Mussolini had been a benign dictator who did not murder opponents but sent them “on holiday” (that is, into exile).
After losing power to Mr Prodi in 2006 he refused at first to step down, alleging voting “irregularities”, and retreated back to Sardinia, where he staged a fake volcanic eruption during a fireworks party and was photographed with yet more showgirls from his Mediaset television empire. He denied he intended to form “the People of Liberty” from his Forza Italia and the Far Right Alleanza Nazionale — then proceeded to do precisely that after Mr Veltroni formed the Democratic Party.
During the campaign he referred to his short height (he wears stacked heels), claiming he was taller than either Vladimir Putin or Nicolas Sarkozy. The magistrates who have repeatedly invesitaged him for corruption, he said, should have regular mental health checks. Accused of failing to revive Italy’s economy when he was in power, leaving it with near zero growth and a huge deficit, he blithely deflected the blame onto Mr Prodi. In the campaign he waved the nationalist and protectionist flag, sinking the Air France KLM bid for the near bankrupt Alitalia by vowing to put together an all Italian consortium - which never materalised.
He has been mercilessly mocked for his cosmetic surgery and perma tan, his empty promises, his male chauvinism. Yet he bounces back — and although Mr Veltroni claimed Mr Berlusconi looked “tired” during the campaign he showed extraordinary energy and infectious optimism. He is still the dominant figiure on the Italian political stage while other European leaders - Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac, José Maria Aznar, Gerhard Schröder — have all gone.
The next stage, it is rumoured, is for him to stand for election as head of state.
Many Italians, it seems, remain seduced by his promise to make them as rich as he is — and his entertainment value. What he has to prove however is that he can use his last term of office to do what he failed to do last time, and generate growth, raise productivity, encourage investment, tackle the crippling bureaucracy, nepotism and organised crime — and GIVE ITALY HOPEce la farà? ne dubito fortemente ma spero di sbagliarmi. ce lo sapremo dire tra 5 anni o forse tra 20 quando piangeremo ancora per i disastri che farà o quando faremo la fine dell'argentina! nel frattempo continuiamo a farci ridere come dimostra questo articolo del più importante giornale al mondo. o sarà comunista anche questo?
RIO DE JANEIRO, 28 aprile 2008 - La polizia brasiliana sta indagando sullo scandalo a luci rossi che ha coinvolto Ronaldo e tre travestiti. L'attaccante del Milan sarebbe rimasto vittima di un tentativo di estorsione da parte di Andrè Luis Ribeiro Albertino, in arte Andreia Albertine, che aveva abbordato all'uscita da un locale dell'elegante quartiere di Barra da Tijuca, a Rio de Janeiro. Arrivato in un motel, l'ex Fenomeno ha contattato per telefono altre due "colleghe" di Andreia perchè si unissero a loro, ma una volta in camera si è reso conto che le tre erano in realtà transessuali.
