First, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi suggested that an opposition leader resembled Stalin, but without the whiskers. Then he accused Italy’s entire centre-left of having nostalgia for Soviet ideas.
The Italian leader did retract one of them. After claiming the centre-left would bring “misery, terror and death” if it was elected, Berlusconi toned it down saying he only meant to refer to past communist regimes – not the present Italian opposition.
With a regional vote coming up, Berlusconi seems to be in attack mode. The April ballot will elect governors in 14 of Italy’s 20 regions and is a vital test ahead of next year’s general election. The main issue is how the uncertain centre-left can hold up against Berlusconi’s relatively united coalition.
The centre-left has its third name in months. Now it is called “The Union”. That title prompted Berlusconi to accuse them of nostalgia for another union – the Soviet one. It still has no platform and has disagreed on the central issue of whether Italian troops should stay in Iraq.
Berlusconi has not yet officially declared his intentions for next year’s vote but he is widely expected to represent the centre-right.
Romano Prodi, who beat Berlusconi in the 1996 elections, may be the challenger, though the left will only choose its candidate during a US-style primary in May. Prodi, an economist and former European Commission president, is often criticised for lacking charisma. His nickname is “Il Professore”.
Meanwhile, Berlusconi – a media mogul with an easy grin and permanent tan – leads the longest-serving government in an unstable political history since the Second World War. Since his election in May 2001, he has become a strong ally of US President George W. Bush and sent 3,000 troops to Iraq.
Media-savvy Berlusconi has lined up a former spaghetti western star for the 3 and 4 April vote. Stocky, bearded Bud Spencer will run for a regional government post in the Lazio area around Rome.
Berlusconi is now trying to win the backing of the Radical Party, which is closer to the far-left on many issues. Its maverick leader Marco Pannella has distributed free marijuana in a campaign to legalise the drug. One of the oddities of Italy’s type of politics is that small parties have a big role at election time, prompting both the left and the right to fight for their support.
On the centre left, the coalition includes Democrats of the Left and the Communist Refoundation, two heirs to what was once the West’s largest communist party. Berlusconi often tries to find headline-grabbing ways to compare the left to the Soviets, like when he linked Piero Fassino, leader of the Democrats of the Left, with Josef Stalin.
Berlusconi likes to play on fears of the left in some sectors of Italian voters, analysts say. His own coalition includes the Northern League, known for its anti-immigration stance, and the National Alliance, which has Neo-Fascist roots, though it has moved into the mainstream.
Besides being premier, Berlusconi is the country’s richest man. At 68, he is head of a media empire which includes the main private TV broadcaster in Italy. In November, the Financial Times placed him fourth on a list of the most influential billionaires worldwide.
Abroad, Berlusconi is perhaps best-known for headline-making gaffes. In 2003, for example, he said that a German lawmaker who had criticised him would be well suited to play a Nazi concentration camp guard in a movie. Many Germans protested.
Berlusconi was also dogged by long-standing corruption allegations for most of his premiership. In December, he was acquitted of bribing judges in the 1980s, before he went into politics. He always insisted that he was innocent and blamed his legal troubles on leftist judges.