Silvio Berlusconi and the traitors

Sunday, November 8, 2011. A vote on the previous year's public finances review reveals Mr Berlusconi's majority may have gone. For good.

Silvio Berlusconi looking at vote results

In the recent past, any vote in the Chamber of Deputies have became a challenge to the prime minister majority, but Silvio Berlusconi has always managed to sort things out, mainly through late horse-trading sessions, many believe.

Beside this, his closest ally – Northern League's Umberto Bossi – has always kept defending his boss.

Berlusconi tried anything to keep Italian's faith, even promising to change his party's name, to a more intriguing one.

Nothing doing.

And when Umberto Bossi was asked by the journalists whether Berlusconi should step down, he answered: maybe not, just step aside.

Vote in the Italian Parliament

Meanwhile the horse-trading somehow got a reverse stream in the past days, as more and more people realised that without Berlusconi's resignation there was no way out of the current lockout. Pressure ratcheted up on him to resign. And few of his allies decided to flee the sinking boat.

And today – yet again – the parliament had to vote on the “rendiconto” (a financial review) that lead to a tie vote just one month ago (see Silvio Berlusconi and the really, really bad luck).

Well, today things went differenty: instead of a draw, Berlusconi's government reached a win in the vote, but he obtained only 308 votes where the absolute majority is of 316 votes.

There are 8 traitors, and Berlusconi has reviewed the list of voters to reveal (and possibly hunt down) them, but this time no horse-trading seem to work and save his government.

Silvio Berlusconi and the chat among friends

Sunday, October 23, 2011. After meeting Silvio Berlusconi on Italy's commitments, Germany's Merkel and France's Sarkozy are asked about how reassuring was the threesome.

Are they talking about him?

On October 15 Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi won a confidence vote by a very narrow majority.

On October 23, eight days later, he had to inspire some confidence in the Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy, who summoned him (needing a true commitment from Italy, in order to try and solve the euro zone crisis), just before a European Council summit in Brussels.

Merkel, Sarkozy and Berlusconi

«I was convincing», declared afterwards Silvio Berlusconi «I have never failed to make the grade», showing how he considered the whole thing as just getting a reproach from the headmaster.

During the following press conference, a French-speaking journalist asked the duo about their level of trust in the Italian politician by putting a question on how much they have been reassured by him.

«How to put it?» answered Nicolas Sarkozy, «We do have confidence in the sense of responsibility of Italy's political, financial and economic authorities as a whole.» whilst Mrs Merkel underscores that «It was a meeting among friends.». They just couldn't help giggling, revealing how funny they found Silvio Berlusconi.

But the video (in French) about the funny scene is revealing more than the mere words.

For Silvio Berlusconi, exams never end.

Silvio Berlusconi and the confidence vote that doesn’t give much confidence

Friday, October 15, 2011. Silvio Berlusconi's government wins a confidence vote by a narrow majority, amongst horse-trading and fans rooting for the Pirro victor.

Forza Italia!

The Italian Prime Minister survived yesterday a confidence vote, but it really looked like as the fulcrum of the question was a bleak horse-trading instead than a in-depth discussion over the economical situation of the Italian Republic.

Amongst the latest trades, Catia Polidori – formerly one of the heads of Gianfranco Fini's Future and Freedom – became vice-minister for Economical Development.

Out of the 630 members of the Lower Chamber, 316 voted in favour.

Not a lively speech from the usually very funny Berlusconi

The opposition main strategy was quite simple: (aiming to prevent the reaching of the quorum of 315 members) the they did not show up. Simple and... ineffective. The leftist would blame the Radical Party, whose members did show up, in order to vote against the confidence (as they probably thought this is how it works in democracy).

«There are not alternatives to this government» is the main point of Silvio Berlusconi, which is quite a gloomy view of the current situation in some people's mind (and quite a boring point, Umberto Bossi might have thought, since he just yawned his head off during the declaration of the Prime Minister).

Today 200 thousand people are awaited in Rome, for a larger Italian “indignados” protest.

After the huge applause that welcomed the vote's results, the finale comments came from Maurizio Lupi (a Chamber of Deputies' vice-president) and Rosy Bindi (who is also a vice-president to the Lower Chamber). Lupi said “Votes are votes”, and Bindi replied: “Assholes are assholes”.

Opposition's strategy