Berlusconi Survives. Will Italy?
Berlusconi Survives. Will Italy?
Yascha Mounk: Berlusconi Survives. Will Italy?
Silvio Berlusconi, that uniquely talented survival expert and corruptor of men, has once again succeeded in dragging Italy down to his own moral level. After many weeks of trying to ?persuade? opposition politicians–in part by immoderate offers of government pork, and in part (if allegations in the Italian papers are to be believed) by straight-out bribes–he won yesterday morning?s confidence vote in Italy?s Chamber of Deputies by the narrowest of margins.
Over the course of the day, Italy descended deeper and deeper into chaos, violence, and self-destruction. The country?s rollercoaster ride toward the abyss is sure to continue today. If things go very badly, the whole continent may ultimately be dragged along.
Here is a brief play-by-play of Italy?s very recent, its present, and its future horrors.
EARLY YESTERDAY, thousands of students peacefully protested against a government that has been so obsessed with its own political and legal troubles that it is impossible to say whether its total neglect of Italy?s deep problems stems from incompetence or indifference. Meanwhile, a corrupt political class yet again delivered its ailing country into the hands of a self-serving buffoon.
Later in the day, extremists hijacked the student protests and wreaked havoc on the center of Rome. Their violence was stupid, immoral–and painfully counterproductive. But, hearing the protestors? long-ignored chants, I find it impossible not to feel a little sympathy for their anger.
After all, their lack of prospects for the future is real. They have tried, in vain, to find a place for themselves in a country that has long since turned into a hedonistic playground for the rich and powerful. They realize and resent that nepotism and rent-seeking are the only realistic ways for them to get ahead. They are impotently railing against a country so devoid of meritocracy that raw talent, if it consists in good looks and big boobs, will get you invited to the prime minister?s bunga-bunga parties; but in which, if your talents consist in intelligence and moral scruples, you will get nowhere at all.
Meanwhile, on live TV, Berlusconi is sitting next to Bruno Vespa, the country?s most popular media personality. Vespa is enthusiastically congratulating his dear friend Silvio on yet another political triumph.
THIS MORNING, with yesterday?s violence having subsided, the government?s crisis drags on among fresh political intrigue. For, Italy being Italy, the parliament?s vote of confidence in Berlusconi has actually resolved nothing at all. That there is no majority against Berlusconi does not signify, in the country?s strange political arithmetic, that there is a stable majority for Berlusconi. Even less does it mean that the government has the votes to introduce the real reforms that are necessary to overcome Italy?s severe economic crisis.
Realizing this, the opposition will call Berlusconi?s bare survival a Pyrrhic victory. But this is just as wrong as the triumphalism of the Right. In a Pyrrhic victory, the forces of the victor are considerably weakened and those of his opponents emboldened. Berlusconi?s ability to bully and cajole Italy?s political caste into yet another round of submission to his every wish, however, demonstrates just how divided his enemies are.
In short, Berlusconi?s narrow victory may have exposed his underlying weakness. But it has harmed his two foremost opponents–the center-left opposition and Gianfranco Fini, Berlusconi?s former ally and current archenemy–even more severely.
The next months are thus difficult to predict. At one level, everything is completely up in the air. Berlusconi might try to persuade another party, like the Catholic Unione di Centro, temporarily to join his government. Alternatively, he might try to wait out the next no-confidence vote and survive it by means of yet another round of dirty deals. Or else, he might call new elections.
Two things, however, seem clear despite this uncertainty. First, the prospects for getting rid of Berlusconi are probably worse now than they have been at any time over the last year. Unbelievable as this might sound, even new elections probably wouldn?t produce a clear anti-Berlusconi majority at this point. Second, and no less worrying, Berlusconi, even though he will formally remain in power, seems less likely than ever to assemble a coalition with which he could actually govern.
ITALY’S NEXT year will, in all likelihood, turn out to be just one more painful confirmation of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa?s prediction, in The Leopard, that everything can change even as things stay the way they are. However eventful 2011 may prove for Italian politics, in all the ways that really matter the country will probably remain paralyzed.
Yet there is also the risk, posed by globalized financial markets and therefore never considered by Lampedusa (who died in 1957), that when things stay the way they are for too long, everything might suddenly change–for the catastrophically worse.
Until today, the most realistic scenario for the demise of the euro was Spain defaulting. But while Spain?s economic data is in some ways worse than Italy?s, its government has proven able to respond with earnest efforts at political reform. Italy?s government, by contrast, has done little to avoid a looming confidence crisis over the last months, and may not be in a state to do much more in the coming months, either.
After today, it thus seems to me that Europeans worried about the stability of the euro should fearfully look at Italy, not Spain. Italy defaulting, while still unlikely, has just become a whole lot more plausible.
Berlusconi looks set to survive yet another political crisis. It is less certain, however, how well Italy, and indeed Europe, will survive Berlusconi?s ability to survive all political crises.
