In view of the referendum on the constitutional reform of December 4, it is probable that the voters of Forza Italia will have to take a cachet against the headache. Silvio Berlusconi, who is notoriously a great football fan and for a few more weeks the president of Milan, is making him do it, but who, by dint of dribbling, ended up discarding even himself and scoring the most sensational own goal by confusing his electorate as more could not be.
Surprisingly and with ill-concealed envy, Berlusconi recognized that Matteo Renzi is today the only political leader in Italy, in spite of his Parisi, Toti, Salvini and Meloni. But then, instead of drawing the logical consequences from this unexpected opening of credit to the prime minister, he invited them to vote NO in the referendum. The leader of Forza Italia, as we know, loves coup de theater and has never made coherence a virtue. A few months ago, after getting his constitutional reform approved in Parliament, he overturned his positions by siding with the NO side in the referendum out of pure spite against Renzi's decision to have Sergio Mattarella elected as the new president of the Republic.
Renzi's reaction was ironic and amused at the same time: "One day Berlusconi considers me a dictator and the next day a leader".
Today, crushed by his own contradictions, Berlusconi cannot afford yet another political somersault and tries to get away with one shot at the rim and one at the barrel. In his heart and thinking about the post-referendum, he probably already regretted calling his people to NO against a once-appreciated reform, but now it's too late to go back again.
Great is the confusion under the sky of Berlusconi.
