More or less at the same time two political events took place yesterday that give a good sense of how the Berlusconi world (it would be an understatement to say the PDL) lives after the ruling on the Ruby case. On the one hand there was the demonstration for the clean and tough in Piazza Farnese called by Giuliano Ferrara to the cry of "we are all whores", on the other the meeting at Palazzo Chigi between Silvio Berlusconi and Prime Minister Enrico Letta. On the one hand, the square with the umpteenth attack against the politicized judiciary; on the other, the main exponent of that world who is trying once again to present himself as the only one who can allow the country and politics a peace-making truce. It is the precise image of the contradictions, indeed of the underlying contradiction that the Italian right is experiencing.
On the one hand, the Italian right presses on the Government and on the institutions asking for the impossible: a sort of safe conduct for its leader able to guarantee him from present and future sentences, threatening to break the bank; on the other, its leader talks about economic issues, dusting off the themes of the electoral campaign (abolition of the IMU “uber alles”), but also accepting possible temporary solutions, such as those of a double postponement of the VAT increase. This is because Berlusconi knows very well that he can also stir up the streets and threaten early elections. But precisely that of resorting to early voting could turn out to be like an unloaded gun for three reasons: 1) at the moment the polls for the PDL and its allies are anything but exciting; 2) if the Letta government were to fall, the Pd could try the card of another majority, given what is happening in the 5-star movement, in which the signs of intolerance towards the either-or of the Grillo-Casaleggio duo are increasing; 3) the President of the Republic will hardly dissolve the Chambers, given that in that case we would go back to voting with the Porcellum. And this precisely because, on the indication of the right, the electoral reform has been placed at the end and not at the beginning of the process of institutional reforms.
For these reasons, the real shield that Berlusconi tries to oppose to what he denounces as the offensive of the politicized judiciary, rather than the square, is participation in the majority and in the government of his party. Of course he can't do without the square either. Not only to keep his people in tension, but also because his role after current and future sentences may increasingly be an extra-parliamentary one. In short, the leader of the PDL, after having attempted to be the statesman of peacemaking, could find himself having to pursue politics outside the institutions, perhaps entrusting the party to a family member. There is much talk of a Marina Berlusconi hypothesis. As for the Cavaliere, he has long accustomed us to significant metamorphoses and could therefore also transform himself from a self-styled statesman into a "gruppettaro" leader. In short: a little more struggle and a little less government.
It is with this political framework and with this boiling right that Prime Minister Enrico Letta has to deal with, who is doing everything possible to keep the Cavaliere's judicial affairs separate from the activity and life of his government. How? In the only possible. On the one hand by negotiating and seeking compromises on programmatic issues, on the other by trying to draw everyone's attention and responsibility to the now imminent appointments awaiting our country in Europe. However, succeeding in the enterprise with the support of a public and government party does not appear to be an easy undertaking.
