This is what Berlusconi should do, according to experts (and laymen)

Saturday, 14 September 2013. As Italy awaits the vote on the political future of Silvio Berlusconi, friends and foes send their advices to the former prime minister.

Silvio Berlusconi: in a real pickle?

Next Wednesday, 18 September 2013, a commission will vote on barring Silvio Berlusconi from the Senate of Italy for good: after the conviction for tax fraud the former prime minister finds himself in a pickle (Berlusconi is said to be in such a disheartened mood that somebody quoted him saying “it'd be better if I died”...)


In the meanwhile, it turns out that almost everybody in Italy have a good advice for the disgraced billionaire turned into politician, who has been grasping at straws since the Supreme Court's decision (and whose salvage might prove being more difficult than the rescue of wrecked Costa Concordia giant cruise ship).

Silvio Berlusconi with Francesca Pascale's pet, Dudù

Turin's newspaper La Stampa has been collecting all these brilliant ideas, we extrapolated some of them.

His family, Silvio Berlusconi's children – Marina, Pier Silvio, Barbara and Eleonora - would like their father to ask for presidential pardon, but it would imply pleading guilty, and Silvio will never do it. The discussion has been going on for a while, apparently Silvio Berlusconi's girlfriend Francesca Pascale and her pet Dudù (the two creatures closest to the sulking media tycoon) are on the same page.

Many others thinks that he should just go to jail, either to atone his sins or to fight from prison, like Nelson Mandela and Václav Havel did before him. One of them is Guido Crosetto, head of a party called “Fratelli d'Italia” (“Brothers of Italy”, which is also the verse of the Italian anthem).

«He is a person of love and courage», and he will sit in jail, said Daniela Santnchè. Actually this was stance that Silvio took some time ago, but then he seemed to have thought it over...

Also former porn actress Ilona Staller (aka Cicciolina)
has a suggestion for Silvio Berlusconi

Professor and political scientist Giovanni Sartori thinks he should resort to the social services: a «honourable retreat» that might grant him the possibility to maintain his political freedom.

Northern League's Roberto Calderoli – vice chair of the Senate and protagonist of a racist remark some time ago – said «If I were him I would never ask for the parton to anyone, especially to Napolitano». But he isn't him, is he?

Berlusconi's political rival Beppe Grillo has a simple and easily implementable advice: «Run away!», whilst his newest ally – radical Marco Pannella – thinks Silvio should resign, in order to «defeat your enemies, “epiphanic” Robespierre», hinting at Democratic Party's (PD) ad interim secretary Guglielmo Epifani.

But perhaps the best suggestion of all came from former porn actress Ilona Staller (she's also a former member of the Italian parliament, for that matters) – aka Cicciolina – who said that he should «accept the verdict, and just have sex all the day long», without clarifying whether she was volunteering or not for the post as a partner... (she might be satisfied with a 3,000 euro - £2,500 or $4,000 - pension granted by the Italian State. To former MPs, not former hard-core pornographic stars...).