There’s some big news from Italy: Silvio Berlusconi's fairytale of power, clownism and egomaniacal macho politics is, more or less, over.
The results of the local elections, that took place in some Italian regions last weekend, showed that the Prime Minister’s People of Liberty party lost support.
The left is recovering ground while the polls also registered the rise of smaller political entities such as the “no-party grassroots party” Five-Star Movement supported by Italian comedian Beppe Grillo, with ordinary citizens with no criminal records or affiliations to other political parties as candidates.
The centre-right coalition lost in other cities in northern Italy with Berlusconi’s main coalition partner, the anti-immigration Northern League, also registering a consisten loss.
Berlusconi even lost votes in Arcore, the town based near Milan that he turned into his personal Shangri-la of pleasures and debauchery since his villa where the sex scandals he was allegedly involved in took place.
The most terrible blow for Berlusconi came from his homebase, Milan: the birthplace of “Berlusconism”, Milan turned yesterday into its tombstone with the centre-right candidate, previous mayor Letizia Moratti, gaining only 41 per cent of the vote, against the centre-left candidate Giuliano Pisapia, who reached 48 per cent.
Neither candidate won more than half of the support, so they will have to go to a run-off at the end of the month, yet this is an unprecedented result since, for the first time in twenty years, the centre-right failed to get more than 50 per cent of the vote.
There are many reasons behind this defeat: Italians are indeed tired of Berlusconi’s egomaniacal politics, of his justice reforms mainly aimed at helping himself and nobody else and of his sex scandals that turned Italy into a clownish country on a global scale.
But there was also another major problem: Berlusconi turned the municipal elections in Milan into a national test about himself launching an aggressive campaign based on continuous anti-communist slogans (yes, we have understood you don’t like communists, but what’s your political programme then?), attacks to magistrates continuously compared to a cancer of society and other assorted offensive behaviour (Moratti accusing at the very end of a political debate on TV her opponent Pisapia of having been convicted of a car theft linked to a terrorist attack 33 years ago...).
While voting, Berlusconi claimed it was “unthinkable” to lose control of Milan, yet that’s exactly what happened with citizens dealing a devastating blow to the Death Star and vaporising his dream of dictatorial power by sending it supernova.
So will Milan have a new face in two weeks’ time? Looks like it may happen and that will undoubtedly have some interesting repercussions on the fashion week as well.
Imagine Milan with no Letizia Moratti squandering public money on private events during the fashion week; imagine a city with no Letizia Moratti continusouly taking pictures of herself next to fashion designers and toVogue’s fashion editor just to look terrifically "en vogue" and with no Moratti turning Milan’s City Hall into a fun palace for mundane events.
Imagine also Milan without a mayor who splashes money on fashion events organised by people who don’t understand anything about art, culture and fashion (read: tanned culture councillor Massimiliano Finazzer Flory) and a Milan where the preparations for the Expo 2015 are not in the hands of very few ones promoting their own interests.
Yes, Berlusconi, that would be "unthinkable" indeed, and, while the dream may still be two weeks away, thinking that the “unthinkable” can happen and that another Milan (and another Italy) is actually possible, is reason enough to celebrate.
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