Knight Of The New Right

By Kevin Fedarko

THE FIRST DAY OF ELECTION WEEK IN Italy was an inauspicious one for Silvio Berlusconi. The media doge turned politician passed several fitful hours last Sunday watching in dismay as his championship Milan A.C. soccer team suffered a rare upset to archrival Naples. But there was no augury in the loss -- at least not for the moment. Just seconds after 10 the following night, when two days' worth of voting was done, Berlusconi stood triumphant on Italy's center stage; Forza Italia (Go Italy!), the party he had conjured from thin air barely three months ago, had emerged as the most important force in the country. In concert with the Northern League and the neo-Fascist National Alliance, the so-called Freedom Alliance had elbowed aside 45 years of corrupt postwar government. Armed with an absolute majority in the lower house of Parliament and close to a majority in the Senate, Berlusconi seemed certain to become the nation's next Prime Minister.

Even before Berlusconi could savor his triumph, however, rifts opened in his fragile odd-bedfellows alliance. The federalists of the Northern League, weary of watching their tax money leave the region, yearn to hive off Italy's rich north from its impoverished south. But on the opposite flank, followers of the National Alliance prefer a unified Italian state and support the centralist policies of Benito Mussolini. Early Tuesday in Rome's Piazza del Popolo, a traditional rallying point, hundreds of admirers threw stiff-armed salutes and shouted, "Duce!" -- the chant that greeted Mussolini seven decades ago. Three days later, Fini praised the former dictator who allied himself with Hitler as "the greatest statesman of the century."

Thanks to the cross fire of contradictions that divide Berlusconi's two allies, the country again has the makings of a ruling coalition every bit as fractious as the 52 revolving-door administrations that came before. "It's a difficult alliance," Berlusconi concedes. But, adds Il Cavaliere ("the Knight," as he is known), "a general doesn't fight a war with the soldiers he wants. He fights with the ones he's got."

A self-anointed reformer who promises an end to the kleptocracy that has passed for government in Italy, Berlusconi heads a $7 billion business empire that encompasses the country's three largest private television networks, its largest department-store chain, and a host of other holdings in publishing, sports, real estate and advertising. He owes much of his dazzling political ascendancy to the fact that he is one of the few top businessmen untainted by Italy's bribes-for-contracts scandal, which during the past two years has implicated more than 5,000 leading statesmen and businessmen and left a vacuum at the heart of Italian politics.

Before Berlusconi's entry, a left-wing coalition led by the Democratic Party of the Left seemed poised to fill the breach. But the left's sweeping victory in municipal elections last December galvanized the media magnate to run for office -- a decision he attributed to "love of my country" and a desire to prevent it from falling under the sway of former communists (some of whom had pledged to break up the media monopoly that provided up to a quarter of his revenues).

Most such spectacular swan dives by inexperienced candidates into national elections turn out to be suicidal. Berlusconi's quest for votes, however, was conducted with all the trappings of a high-powered American-style advertising campaign, complete with public relations consultants and sound-bite coaching. Not surprisingly, the key to success was television. With three national networks at his disposal, the fledgling candidate was able to meticulously craft an image of himself as a savior of a country mired in economic stagnation and convulsed by scandal. Gaps in campaign broadcasting laws allowed him to beam his televised pitch directly into the living rooms of up to 45% of the country's TV viewers, blitzing voters with his vaguely worded commitment to family, business, freedom, profits and competition up to 18 times each day. Promising a Reaganesque agenda of reduced government spending combined with lower income taxes, Berlusconi vowed to revive Italy's economy.

As long as Il Cavaliere's armor retains its luster, he will enjoy a mandate for his vision of change. Monday night, while he reaffirmed his promise to deliver a "new Italian miracle," supporters careered through the streets of Rome blasting their car horns and crying "Silvio! Silvio!" It was display of jubilation not seen since the giddy summer of 1990, when soccer-mad Italy seemed on the brink of its fourth World Cup title. That dream, of course, was dashed when the home team lost to Argentina in the semifinals -- a useful lesson to draw on the evanescence of miracles.

With reporting by John Moody/Rome and Ann M. Simmons/Washington