The waning legacy of Berlusconi, the first great populist

Everything had an air of an experiment, a laboratory, a revolution.

Even the invention of Roberto Gasparotti, the director in charge of recording that video, who had the idea of ​​covering the camera lens with nylon stockings to give warmth to the image and, above all, so that Silvio Berlusconi's face, Then 56 years old and still without a trace of his stubborn surgeries, he appeared younger.

There were nine minutes that were broadcast on the night of January 26, 1994 on the news and contained almost everything that would be seen in politics for the next 30 years: a false set, a businessman who became a politician, special effects, football language. ―“

scendere in campo

” [go out onto the field]―, communism as a ghost to be waved against the producers who had to pay for the party.

It was a success.

Four times Prime Minister and the inspiration for so many phenomena that would come, such as Donald Trump himself.

Today, half a year after his death, after 30 years of judicial storms, sexual scandals, economic crises, resignations and decisions that changed everything so that everything remained the same, practically nothing remains of that phenomenon.

“Italy is the country I love,” the magnate and president of AC Milan then began, looking at the camera.

And from there, from that set, he built an unprecedented device in the transalpine country that broke with the old communism/Christian democracy scheme, reaching unusual levels of support and popularity.

Berlusconi built his party, Forza Italia, on the aspirational dreams of an emerging middle class.

And with that story he convinced half of Italy.

The other half, however, was raised against a way of doing politics that was as personal as it was sterile in terms of collective results.

In his almost 10 years of government, the country reduced its per capita income by 3.1%, according to the International Monetary Fund (the worst figure for the EU in that decade).

Consumption fell by 8% and food spending by 36%.

The fiscal pressure increased 1.6 points, but spending on education decreased by about 11% or that on culture by 30%, while spending on defense grew by 35%.

The risk premium—and a European

troika

whose patience was exhausted—finally brought down his work in the fall of 2011, when it reached its all-time high: 574 points.

Even so, during that time, the party became one of the strongholds of the EPP (European People's Party) in southern Europe.

Despite having a loose verse as a leader.

Cesare Previti whispers something to Silvio Berlusconi at an event in 1994 in Rome.Franco Origlia (Getty Images)

Forza Italia, however, is today a residual formation in Giorgia Meloni's Executive and on the Italian electoral map (it has around 7% voting intention, according to the latest polls).

It is also the symbol of the EPP's loss of power in some countries where the extreme right has taken the lead, such as in France.

It is true that Berlusconi's formation was always an uncomfortable branch that did not come from Christian democracy, like most branches of the EPP.

But the current situation must be resolved in the short term with new alliances with the most radical parties, as is already happening in Italy.

Political scientist Giovanni Orsina, an expert on the figure of Berlusconi and Forza Italia, believes that the party will continue to exist.

“He will have a different role, of course.

Now it is the moderate and minority wing of a majority government.

In its case, linked to the EPP and with the capacity to act as a bridge between Meloni and the European

mainstream

.

We are talking about 6% or 7% support.”

The result of the next European elections will mark its future, which is mainly in southern Italy.

Berlusconi's legacy, Orsina believes, today is rather sociological.

“It is the right-wing electorate, which he knew how to catalyze first.

He partly discovered it and partly invented it.

It existed, but he gave it shape.

And today, after the parenthesis of the 5 Star Movement, which broke the balance of forces, it once again represents that 45% or 47% of Berlusconi's initial era.

But it is in the hands of other parties.

And because of him, he contributed innovation in communication, in the relationship between leadership and the mass media,” he points out.

“But they are methodological things, not related to the contents.

Because the contents were closely linked to the period in which he appeared.

To an optimism of the nineties, the emphasis of the market, civil society.

It was a state of mind, a dream.

The idea that the future would be better than the present.

Berlusconi was able to condense this decade.

And very little of that remains.”

Nor, practically, do any of the great founders of the formation or its floating advisors remain.

Maybe just Gianni Letta - Berlusconi's old chief of staff and Rasputin in chief - or Fedele Confalonieri, his stage partner on cruises and today president of Mediaset.

Silvio Berlusconi, in 2009, with Giorgia Meloni, then Minister of Youth of his Government.Stefano Rellandini (AP)

Berlusconi was the first great populist, also a pioneer in talking about ideas such as “old politics” and creating a system without apparent intermediaries between him and the voters.

Something that parties based on a supposed participatory democracy such as the 5 Star Movement benefited two decades later.

But he was also the one who opened the door of the institutions to the extreme right.

It happened long before this issue was talked about in Europe.

The chronicles fix that moment on November 18, 2007, when

Il Cavaliere

got into a car parked in Piazza San Babila in Milan after six in the afternoon and proclaimed the birth of a new party in Italy called Il Popolo della Libertà. , the fusion of the entire spectrum of the right, including the most radical wing coming from the embers of fascism, then represented by Gianfranco Fini's National Alliance.

From that moment on, figures from more or less distant backgrounds from that world began to parade through their governments, such as Giorgia Meloni herself, who was their Minister of Youth between 2008 and 2011. The result of that experiment, together with the eternal leadership of Berlusconi, was that of a father devoured by his children.

The party is now in the hands of several currents, over which Antonio Tajani prevails, perhaps the only founder with a truly active role today.

The former president of the European Parliament is responsible for the rapprochements between the party and the extreme right, always blessed by the president of the EPP, Manfred Weber.

“I feel the spirit of 1994,” he has said in recent days, alluding to the vigor of an era needed now to refound a dwindling party.

But, in part, the original sin lies with Berlusconi, who never wanted to clearly name a successor when he was alive.

Silvio Berlusconi at the presentation of La Cinc, the version of Canale 5 that he exported to France. frederic meylan (Frederic Meylan)

This Friday, 30 years later, what remains of that world will meet at the Salone delle Fontane, in the EUR neighborhood of Rome.

The event will be presented by journalist Bruno Vespa, host of the historic program

Porta a Porta

, who in 2001 made his set available to

Il Cavaliere

to sign his famous

Contract with the Italians

live .

Azzurra Libertà

, the party anthem,

will sound .

And there will surely be those who will be excited.

And then, it will be the perfect time to see how the nine-minute video that announced one of the biggest political changes of the second half of the century has aged.

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