Within days, this verb has become a hashtag, a facebook meme, a political satirist's dream; restuitiro. This is arguably the first real
digital campaign of Italian elections, and unknowingly, at the behest of a few,
it’s giving even more attention to the man at the centre of it.
In the space of one week, Silvio Berlusconi has promised to
“give back the Italian property tax”, “allow a mass tax amnesty” and “create 4
million new jobs for young people”. If a week is a long time in politics, as Harold Wilson
attested to, Berlusconi is making brisk work of it.
And yet there’s something very irksome about all of this. An
economic position which few economists can actually agree on, to the salesman
pitch of a second hand car dealer, the promise to give things back is, well,
working.
He’s adopted a dog, got a new squeeze, discovered Twitter and
purchased Balotelli. He’s turned political campaigning on its head. From the
political abyss of twelve months ago, to the theatrical “here to save Italy”
re-emergence; he’s gone from being without a cat in hell’s chance of winning to
now a whisker away. OK - I promise, no more feline puns.
Since his re-introduction to the main political stage, he’s
classed the office of president as “lame duck” and claimed that he doesn’t want
to be president; well, he has had four stabs at it now. Whatever he does,
whatever he says, tongues will wag, people will write and it has it’s desired
effect. From less than a twenty-four percent chance of winning twelve weeks ago,
down to four percent today, even Lazarus would be impressed by this
turnaround.
In short he is the antithesis of Cicero’s political warning,
“Nothing is more unreliable than the populace, nothing more obscure than human
intentions, nothing more deceptive than the whole electoral system.”
His political resurrection has been founded on making a
promise of giving something back, he’s the Arthur Daley of politics - and if he
wins, he’ll have to be the Father Christmas of it as well.
Gino De Blasio
Read mylittlevespa, Gino's humorous and affectionate blog about all things Italian.
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