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PDF FormatA closer examination of the political situation, however, would have revealed that the Italians did not actually want to be ruled by the left. Despite the collapse of the center and the lack of a reasonable alternative, the majority of Italian voters still sought to vote for non-leftist candidates. This was why many did not vote at all in the local elections, and why anti-leftist candidates from small movements, even extreme and problematic ones, received an amazing degree of support. In important cities such as Rome, Naples and Trieste, the National Alliance candidates received more than forty percent of the votes, compared with only a few percent in the past, and in Venice and Genoa the Northern League candidates received similar support. Milan, Italy’s industrial and commercial capital, awarded an overwhelming victory to a mediocre Northern League candidate, just to avoid electing the candidate of the left. A majority of Italians were not willing under any circumstances to cast their votes for the left, and a sizable portion of the electorate was even prepared to vote for extremist parties that would normally receive only a miniscule percentage of the vote, in order to avoid supporting the left.
Berlusconi studied the results and understood them better than anyone else in Italy. His instincts and his years of daily contact with the middle class convinced him that the Italians remained conservative and anti-leftist. He knew the Italian public would give considerable support to the anti-leftist parties in the coming general elections, but this was not sufficient: There remained many indecisive moderate voters who opposed the left but would not give their votes to extremist parties. However, these voters—many of whom had not gone to the polls in the local elections—would support a right-centrist candidate, if they were given the opportunity.
Thus, during the hot summer nights of 1993, Berlusconi began to consider a new idea that had been raised by several of his advisors: He himself should enter the political fray. This was a path replete with obstacles, especially for someone so totally involved in the management of his corporation. But it also provided a great opportunity, and Berlusconi had always been enthusiastic over the prospect of new conquests. His closest business associate, Confalonieri, describes what was possibly the decisive period in Berlusconi’s thinking, when Berlusconi “would watch political debates on all twenty or thirty television screens in [his villa in] Arcore, and he would say to me: ‘There is no one, no one.’”22
As the thought of entering politics as a national leader turned into a decision, Berlusconi underwent a transformation. He burned all bridges to the past, abandoning the relationships he had until then maintained with the old political guard. In the Saturday meeting of September 25, 1993, he confessed to those present: “I will speak frankly to you: I was the slave of the parties for fourteen years [since his entry into the media world], but now I can no longer bear telephone calls of a certain type.”23
Berlusconi finally entered the fray between the two rounds of the November local elections, when he answered a question regarding the results of the first round by declaring: “If I were voting in Rome, I would give my vote to [Gianfranco] Fini”—the leader of the National Alliance. This declaration immediately achieved two results: First, it signaled to Fini (as Berlusconi later would to Northern League leader Bossi as well) that Berlusconi was interested in a broad-based anti-leftist political front, which could include extreme parties such as the National Alliance and the Northern League within a more moderate framework. At the same time, Berlusconi apprised the Italian electorate of his goal of creating an alliance legitimate enough to earn the support of moderate centrists, which would have a real chance of victory.
This declaration resulted in scathing attacks against Berlusconi by the leftist media in Italy—aped by the international media—in an attempt to portray him as a Fascist. He appeared in cartoons in leftist Italian newspapers in a Fascist uniform, and the Communist newspaper Il Manifesto labeled him “The Black Knight”—an allusion to Mussolini’s Blackshirts. The left’s hatred of Berlusconi reached such depths that the international media even spuriously accused him of anti-Semitism (within Italy, not even his enemies would risk making such a ludicrous claim). This charge was especially preposterous in light of the fact that Berlusconi’s media group was consistently the most pro-Israeli and pro-Jewish in Italy, and many of its leading executives, such as his media advisor, Enrico Mentana, or his deputy at the time, Clemente Mimun, are Jews or are of Jewish origin. However, the media was unable to unearth any deed or statement by Berlusconi that could be interpreted as anti-Semitic or even anti-Israeli. Indeed, several statements and actions proved the opposite. Berlusconi’s record is all the more remarkable because the traditional political and intellectual leadership of Italy, whether leftist or Catholic, is typically anti-Israel and at times even anti-Semitic.
Responding to these salvos against him, Berlusconi issued an adamant declaration that not only would he not recant, but he henceforth intended to play an active role in Italian politics. This announcement delineated the basis of his political program:
The situation in our country is obvious to all, and the citizens understand it better than many commentators. A leftist alliance to take control of the country is forming ... around the former Communist Party. Many decent Italians, myself included, do not trust this alliance. At present, this leftist alliance around the forces and machinery of the former Communists, based on their programs, their people and their values, appears as a challenge to reason and a provocation against liberal economics and the market....In contrast, on the side of the spectrum which extends from the center rightward, there are various disunited political elements at play. Their political fate, if the situation does not change, will be to find themselves a minority in Parliament—that is, to lose. In a serious democracy, which is open to the possibility of changes in government, it is inconceivable that only one end of the political spectrum should organize to compete for victory. In a civilized country, someone who does not trust the programs, values and people presented by the left—which is controlled by leaders with a Communist tradition—has the right to be properly represented in Parliament and to compete for victory....My position, as an entrepreneur and as a citizen, is therefore necessary and very clear: I urge the scattered forces in the moderate camp to organize together.... Each will retain its independence, but that same democracy which enables changes of government requires disparate entities to form coalitions together. Otherwise, it is a joke.24
VII
A Patchwork Army
If men were good, this would not be a good precept, but since they are wicked and will not keep faith with you, you are not bound to keep faith with them.The Prince, ch. 18
Despite Berlusconi’s household name, organizational infrastructure, media outlets and political ties, his election bid still seemed to be a long shot at the end of 1993. Virtually no one believed he would be capable of running a successful campaign in the less than one hundred days remaining until the general elections in March 1994.
As was his wont, however, Berlusconi embarked on this task with fierce determination and tremendous faith in himself, designing most of the elements of his campaign on his own. He produced a simple and easily understood campaign ad, which was repeated incessantly; he wrote the words to his movement’s campaign song—also simple and easy to understand; and he decided on a clear and simple message as his statement to the voters: That the rise to power of the left would be disastrous for Italy, since it would try to implement economic, social and cultural ideas which had proven to be abysmal failures elsewhere. Consequently, anyone who regarded himself as committed to traditional values and a free market would have to support Berlusconi’s center-right coalition.
