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PDF FormatUnder the leadership of the Fiat corporation and its president, Cesare Romiti, the Strong Forces—whose heads had previously avoided the political limelight—openly sought to create a center-left ruling bloc committed to continuing the government handouts and financial protection instituted by the Christian Democrats.27 Such a bloc would be subservient to the Strong Forces, who could dissolve it at any time via the withdrawal of their loyalists in the PPI and other parties if government policy were to veer to the left. Representatives of the old center and the Strong Forces therefore presented the PDS with a clear set of conditions: First, despite the fact that the left had greater electoral strength, the political alliance would be constructed on the basis of parity—half to the old center and half to the left. Second, the PDS would distance itself from the far left, and finally, the new alliance’s candidate for prime minister would be a man from the center: Romano Prodi, a bespectacled bureaucrat of the old Christian Democrat school. As director of a holding company for government-owned corporations, Prodi was a favorite partner of the Strong Forces in sweetheart deals, and his bumbling appearance ensured that he would not arouse the suspicions of any Italian.
The PDS agreed to these terms, and a center-left political bloc named Ulivo (Olive) was formed, headed by Prodi. The Olive bloc encouraged Bossi and the Northern League to run by themselves, thereby splitting the conservative electorate. It also courted the votes of the extreme left-wing Refounded Communist (Rifondazione Comunista) party, which were essential for the bloc’s victory at the polls. Although the Communists remained outside the Olive bloc and would not be invited into any Olive government, an indirect voting agreement was reached to enable Communist supporters to cast their votes for Olive bloc candidates without the need for a direct political pact.
Moreover, there were ongoing attempts throughout this period—though without any real success to date—to implicate Berlusconi in new scandals emerging from Clean Hands. About three hundred police investigations have so far been conducted against Berlusconi’s companies, though virtually all have proved fruitless.28 The suspicion that these investigations were politically motivated—Fiat, for example, was subjected to only a few investigations, despite having confessed to and been convicted of complicity in the network of political payoffs—meant that most Italians continued to regard Berlusconi as a business and political leader worthy of esteem. However, the investigations combined with the pressure exerted by the new center-left alliance to place him in a difficult position in advance of the June 1996 general elections.
The Olive bloc and the Strong Forces succeeded in isolating and weakening Berlusconi and the conservative bloc to a considerable degree. The Northern League ran independently; Prime Minister Dini suddenly discovered political aspirations of his own and established a small centrist party that joined the Olive bloc—which did not prevent him from retaining his position during the election campaign and using all the resources of the government to advance his candidacy; the Milan investigative teams continued to promise revelations of Berlusconi’s corruption (which never came to pass); and the conservative bloc suffered an additional crisis when the extreme, neo-Fascist faction of the National Alliance defected and established the Fiamma (Flame) party, which ran independently in the elections.
Despite the mounting pressures, Berlusconi refused to participate in a cozy national-unity government with the left. Once again he offered his candidacy, confident that a majority of Italians, as always, would not want a leftist government—not even one which billed itself as “center-left” and was led by a harmless bureaucrat such as Prodi.
Berlusconi correctly gauged the desire of the majority of Italians, but it did not prevent his loss at the polls on April 21, 1996. The Olive bloc’s divide-and-conquer tactics were successful: As in Israel in 1992, a divided right lost even though it received more votes than the left.
Yet the 1996 elections nevertheless demonstrated the power of Italy’s conservative tradition. Even with the incessant deprecation of Berlusconi and the new center-left alliance, most Italians preferred conservative candidates.29 And a look at the actual votes cast reveals that the Italian left weakened considerably from 1994 to 1996, especially among the young30—a fact that speaks volumes about the future of the Italian conservative political tradition. The rumors of its death appear to be premature—it is alive and well, and its future seems assured.
IX
The Conservative Camp
Furthermore, [the prince] should encourage his citizens and allow them to go about their affairs in tranquility whether in commerce, agriculture or any other kind of activity, so that no one shall refrain from improving his possessions for fear lest they be taken from him, and no other shall hesitate to engage in commerce for fear of taxes. A prince should rather reward such citizens and any others who may in any way enrich his state or his city.The Prince, ch. 21
At present, Italy’s first center-left government appears extremely fragile, due to increasing bickering among its component factions, and the long-term prognosis is not optimistic.
And Berlusconi? After the 1996 defeat, he went into seclusion for a time, and many who preferred to see him depart from politics argued that he was unwilling to be, and incapable of being, a long-term player in the ongoing political game. But Berlusconi, at sixty years of age, was still at the peak of his strength and ambitions. He was still the unchallenged leader of the conservative camp, as there was no one who could (or would) replace him as head of the center-right political bloc.31
At the end of his brief seclusion, Berlusconi gave those who had asked whether he was still dedicated to and capable of bringing about a conservative victory an unequivocal answer: Yes, he had decided to devote himself totally to politics, and Yes, he believed his personality and views were what was needed to lead the conservative camp to victory. In a letter which he recently published, he wrote:
An evil wind blows over Italy at present: A spirit of regimentation, an illiberal spirit, a spirit of conformism, a spirit of dirigisme and self-righteousness. The battle, or war, that must be waged to restore the rule of law, maintain the guaranteed rights of the individual, defend democracy and ensure liberties will find me in the first rank, at its head.32
The main criticisms of Berlusconi have concerned his ongoing management of his corporation after his entry into politics. Berlusconi’s critics justly regarded this as a dangerous mix of business and politics. Berlusconi’s response was that even though he had resigned from all his official positions (except the presidency of the Milan soccer club) upon entering the political arena, he could not so easily divorce himself from the business he had built with his own two hands, and which he still owned. Today, two years after his entry into politics, Berlusconi still owns his group of companies and is involved in their management. However, he is currently completing the process of transferring ownership and management of these companies, partly to members of his family, and the rest by sale to the public.
Berlusconi stresses that his aspirations do not consist only of promoting himself as a leader. He abandoned his beloved business life in order to leave behind a permanent, well-established conservative political bloc that will constitute the natural ruling power in Italy. Beyond the alliance with additional right and center elements, he seeks to establish the Forza Italia party as the country’s main political power—one which will expressly represent the Italian conservative tradition as he defines it: The preservation of traditional liberties, the economic freedom of classical liberalism, and Catholic social and cultural conservatism.33
