For a moment, it was tempting to suppose that the revelations of the past 10 days were a great plot by a diabolically devious Berlusconi; could news of his friendship with “Ruby”, the Moroccan girl who was just 17 when she was invited to his St Valentine’s Day party, be a diversionary tactic to distract the media’s attention from his government’s inaction and political paralysis?
After all, the suggestion that Mr Berlusconi has a weakness for pretty girls is hardly news – it is now 18 months since his wife said he was “not well and frequents minors” after it emerged that he had met another 17-year-old, Noemi Letizia, on several occasions before very publicly attending her 18th birthday party.
A few weeks later it transpired that he had spent the US election night in November 2008 with Patrizia D’Addario, an escort from Bari who had recorded the sounds of their encounter.
Other girls present that evening, like the escort Barbara Montereale, began to talk as well. Then photographs were published of near naked girls around the pool at his Sardinian villa. A slew of his alleged encounters with attractive women kept the world’s newspapers busy for months.
Yet the latest revelations are significantly more serious, because they involve something other than mere sex and money, and Mr Berlusconi’s government is suffering real damage.
First, in what has inevitably been called “Rubygate” after the stage name of Karima El Mahroug, the dancer who entertained at private parties, it emerged that Mr Berlusconi’s office had telephoned Milan police in May after she was arrested and accused of theft.
He allegedly ordered the police to release her, despite the fact that she was a minor with no proper documents, on the false grounds that her grandfather was Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president.
Mr Berlusconi admitted to meeting the dancer, who says she did not have sex with him, and confirmed he had telephoned the police – saying he “always helped people in need”. Critics say this was a crude abuse of prime ministerial power.
Then came allegations from a former prostitute, Nadia Macrì, who said not only that she had sex with the prime minister for €10,000 at his Sardinian villa and at his private residence outside Milan, but that marijuana for her and other girls was flown into the Mediterranean island on Mr Berlusconi’s plane – a claim which, if proven, would be dynamite.
The Ruby story emerged from an investigation into a prostitution racket – whose three main subjects are all closely linked to Mr Berlusconi.
One is Emilio Fede, the grovelling anchorman of Mr Berlusconi’s Rete Quattro news. It was Fede, a frequent member of beauty contest juries who is always on the lookout for young talent, who first put Mr Berlusconi in touch with Miss Letizia
Also under investigation is Lele Mora a professional talent scout and agent who is a neighbour of Mr Berlusconi in Sardinia. Police are exploring his alleged connections with Calabrian organised crime, the ‘Ndrangheta.
The third is Nicole Minetti, a 25-year-old former showgirl and dancer turned dental hygienist who helped treat the prime minister after a mentally ill assailant smashed a statue into his face. Earlier this year Mr Berlusconi put her up for election to the Lombard Regional Assembly, where she now sits. It was Miss Minetti who took charge of “Ruby” after the police released her.
All this suggest a rising tide of sleaze, even if there are no criminal convictions at the end of the day. Mr Berlusconi himself made matters worse by first boasting about his lifestyle, then proudly proclaiming it better to “love women than to be gay”.
Finally, Fede gave a new spin to the old definition of chutzpah – the quality of nerve possessed by someone who murders his parents, then demands the community’s support because he’s an orphan.
Mr Berlusconi, he explained, “is single and has become sad since he lost his mother. I can’t see anything wrong if he enjoys himself one evening a week.” He ended the interview saying “I’ve got to go on air, otherwise he’ll fire me”.
Now some of Berlusconi’s carabinieri guards have complained that they spend more time moving and escorting the prime minister’s companions than providing security. So far the letter of the law appears to have been followed, but in Italy a policeman ignores a call from the prime minister at his peril.
What’s shocking is that all of this is has happened as rubbish again piles up in and around Naples; parliament was adjourned for most of the last month; and a cabinet meeting failed to set up a nuclear energy agency or appoint new members of the stock exchange watchdog, the Consob.
It led to Emma Marcegaglia, the president of the Confindustria, the employers’ association, declaring: “The country is paralysed, and the government is absent.”
Worst of all, from Berlusconi’s personal point of view, his attempted “reform of justice” (shorthand for laws to extend his own immunity from prosecution) has been halted, faced with strong opposition from the breakaway centre-right group lead by Gianfranco Fini, and from Italy’s President Giorgio Napolitano.
On Dec 14 Italy’s constitutional court will pronounce on the status of the present immunity law; if they overturn it, Mr Berlusconi will have to appear in court to answer accusations of bribery, tax fraud and false accounting in two separate trials, and face possible conviction by the end of next year.
In that case Mr Berlusconi may look to the example of his friend and mentor Bettino Craxi, a former socialist prime minister, who was convicted of corruption 20 years ago and fled to gilded exile in Tunisia. Mr Berlusconi has just bought a new villa in Antigua and has been making friends with the island’s government, so there may be a Caribbean future for him.
By most standards, he is floundering – and by most he would soon be out of power. Opposition parties urge Mr Fini, formerly a solid Berlusconi ally, to end his new Futuro e Libertà grouping’s support for the government, pulling the plug on the prime minister. Yet Mr Fini does not yet dare.
Not only has he made his name playing the part of “responsible statesman” – so cannot be seen to bring down the government – but his new group, to be launched as a full political party today, is not ready to fight an election. Meanwhile, his allies in the business world say explicitly that they do not want early elections.
The trades unions have been less clear cut but fear the instability that a fresh election would bring. Only “Italy of the Values”, the smaller party dedicated to fighting corruption, would relish a campaign right now.
So Mr Berlusconi will teeter on. Support from conservatives and the church is eroding because of his lifestyle, from business because of the stagnant economy and from consumers because of declining purchasing power. But there appears to be no viable alternative and if elections were held tomorrow Mr Berlusconi would, despite everything, probably win power again.
He can continue to call Mr Fini’s bluff, and Mr Fini will for now stick to his mantra that he “supports the government programme”.
In Italian grand opera, the heroine takes half an hour to die; in the Grand Soap Opera which is Berlusconi’s Italy, the government will take half a year, or more, finally to collapse.
Slinking Toward Retirement 