TOO RICH FOR HIS OWN GOOD

Matt Frei explains the sudden fall

from grace of Silvio Berlusconi.

It's all to do with money

Rome SOME prime ministers fail because they are incompetent or bland, others because they are too radical. Italy's Silvio Berlus- coni is failing because he's too rich.

Pity the media, publishing, advertising, retail, insurance and soccer tycoon who has had discovered that the very riches that swept him to power in March are now the cause of his demise. This reversal of for- tune can best be measured by the fickle behaviour of middle-aged and elderly Ital- ian women, formerly some of the tycoon's staunchest supporters and now some of his fiercest enemies.

During the election campaign, Berlusconi took great care to court the Italian House- wives Association, a powerful lobby with several hundred thousand active members.

Berlusconi would arrive at one of their meetings in the customary self-effacing style of a mega-tycoon: a cortege of armoured cars longer than the President's, a dozen bodyguards with wires coming out of their ears, a posse of bag-carriers, advis- ers and secretaries with clip-boards. When Berlusconi got on stage, flashed one of his whiter than white smiles and told his blush- ing audience that he knew `how to wield a feather duster', they squealed and laughed with delight. They loved the Great Seducer, as he was called at the time. He had much the same impact on almost half the Italian electorate. When earnest members of the Left mentioned the Prime Minister's `conflict of interest' created by his corporate assets, they were met with scorn, disbelief or boredom.

Last week I came across the Ravenna section of the Italian Housewives Associa- tion. They were standing with hundreds of other elderly and middle-aged women out- side Mr Berlusconi's office in Rome's Piaz- za Colonna, where the tear-gas canisters, bricks, metal rubbish-bins and other pro- jectiles had barely been cleared away after the previous day's demonstration. One heart-shaped banner held up by a group of three widows in black read 'Pewit tre- mate, le nonne sono torn ate!'. Roughly translated this means `Tremble, tremble, the grannies have returned'. A woman from Gaeta, north of Naples, told me the Prime Minister was 'revolting'. As she spat out the word, she vigorously rubbed the bottom of her chin with the top of her hand — a dismissive and terrifying gesture. Another woman who was wearing a Gucci scarf thought Berlusconi should be castrat- ed. All of the above told me — with vary- ing degrees of embarrassment — that they had voted for him in March.

The demonstration outside the Prime Minister's office had been staged to protest against the austerity budget drafted by the Berlusconi government. This, welcomed by the financial markets, was the most serious attempt in recent political history to whittle down Italy's bloated national debt, the sec- ond largest in the European Union.

One of the budget's provisions is to cut Italy's notoriously generous state pensions by raising the age of retirement for men and women to 65 and 60 years respectively. Italy has 20 million pensioners, more than one in three of the population. Half the annual budget is absorbed by pension pay- ments. And, despite its image as a bambi- no-breeding country, Italy has the lowest birth-rate in the world. If pensions contin- ue to be paid at the old rates, an Italian worker in ten years' time will have to give up half his salary to look after the growing regiment of pensioners. Cutting state pen- sions is thus a matter of some urgency.

A degree of protest against these austeri- ty measures was inevitable. But the great majority of demonstrators outside the Prime Minister's office, including the mem- bers of the Ravenna Housewives Associa- tion, were not even affected by the budget. In fact they were not going to lose one sin- gle lira in pensions. When I explained this, I was greeted with baffled looks.

Rosanna was wielding a feather duster and wearing a large board featuring the words 'Sweep away the Prime Minister'. `Well,' she said defiantly, `we are doing it for our children.' When I pointed out that her children would be grateful not to have to foot a huge pensions bill, she became angry. She clutched the feather duster as if it were a rubber truncheon. I left in haste. But the new-found disgust for Silvio Berlusconi cannot be explained only by his policies.

However efficient, presidential, well- meaning, hard-working and good-looking Mr Berlusconi may be, he is quite simply too rich to cut anyone's pensions or social benefits. The tycoon's wealth, which once gave a varnish of credibility to his promises of economic miracles, is now merely an insult. If he wants to become a credible prime minister he will, unfortunately, have to divest himself of his personal, assets. Understandably he does not seem pre- pared to so. His advisers point out that the Italian constitution allows a politician to maintain his assets even while he is holding office and that if the current crisis contin- ues, he may soon be out of a job. As far as conflicts of interest go, the tycoon Prime Minister is in a class of his own. Does the Prime Minister want to reform the state broadcaster RAI, lower its licence fee, reduce its staff and appoint his nominees in key editorial positions because he owns the commercial competition? Has he used a parliamentary decree to push through an amnesty for illegal construction because he owns Edilnord, one of the coun- try's biggest construction companies? Has he encouraged Italians to opt for private instead of state pensions because he owns Mall- olanum Vita and Ambrosiana Vita, two of the country's biggest life insurance firms?

Under proposed plans for a 'blind trust' to manage Berlusconi's Fininvest holding company, every single piece of government legislation would be tested by a special committee of experts to see whether it enhances the company's profits. The pro- cess of government in Italy would become even more laborious and bogged down in never-ending debates about 'conflicting interests'. The situation is not helped by the fact that Fininvest is currently the sub- ject of seven different lines of criminal investigation into false accounting, bribery and corruption.

Mr Berlusconi himself has not yet been investigated. Milan's chief prosecutor, Francesco Saverio Borelli, only hinted vaguely in his by now famous newspaper interview in the Corriere della Sera that the investigation into the pay TV channel Telepiu 'might soon reach the highest cir- cles of finance and politics'. But the gov- ernment's reaction to these vague comments betrayed a guilty conscience. Giuliano Ferrara, the 22-stone chief gov- ernment spokesman, threatened between puffs of his habitual cigar to prosecute the prosecutor. He denounced his hints as `Mafia tactics' and lodged an official com- plaint with President Scalfaro. What he should have done was to ignore the judge's unsubstantiated remarks.

After two and a half years of revelation after revelation of sleazy scandals, the Ital- ian public is suffering from corruption fatigue. The latest scandal — that the high priests of haute couture Messrs Armani and Versace had been paying massive bribes to the financial police — was greet- ed with boredom and sympathy rather than outrage. The Italians have once again resigned themselves to the universal nature of temptation. A bit of public self- flagellation from Mr Berlusconi and a mea culpa and they might even be prepared to forgive the Prime Minister's past peccadil- loes. But by trying to discredit the Milan judges before they announce an investiga- tion into Mr Berlusconi, the government's tactics may have backfired.

Meanwhile, the conspiracy theorists are as usual having a field day: according to one school, the Left is using the judges to overthrow the tycoon. According to anoth- er, the cunning leader of the neo-fascist party, Gianfranco Fini, is using the judges to oust Mr Berlusconi. This theory has gained some credence recently because for the first time Mr Fini has eclipsed the media tycoon in the opinion polls.

My hunch is that nothing as organised or logical as a plot is taking place. Mr Berlus- coni will probably stay in office — but not necessarily in power — because his coali- tion partners still want him there. The `Great Seducer' has become a wallflower.

Matt Frei is southern Europe correspondent for the BBC.