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The knight versus the professor

Vaiju Naravane

The choice for the Italian electorate on Sunday is between the incumbent Prime Minister's flamboyance and the challenger's dignified approach.

THE TWO contenders couldn't be more different. Romano Prodi, former Italian Prime Minister and European Commission President — serious bespectacled, greying and professorial; some say even priestly — is the challenger with his centre-left alliance made up of a handful of parties including the communists. Silvio Berlusconi, tanned, flamboyant, and unabashedly touched up with teeth and hair implants and a facelift he does not bother to keep secret, is the desperate defender, his conservative, centre-right alliance trailing behind in the electoral polls.

Mr. Berlusconi chose the southern port city of Naples for his final election rally on Friday, while Mr. Prodi settled on the capital Rome as Italy's 50 million voters prepared to vote on Sunday to elect a new Prime Minister and legislature.

The campaign has been one of the most bitterly fought electoral battles in post-war Italian history with the outgoing Prime Minister, Italy's richest man who owns its three largest TV stations and controls three state-run channels, fighting to retain his position. As the campaign progressed and it became clear that Mr. Berlusconi was trailing in the polls, he pulled out one desperate sweetener after another to woo the 25 per cent of the country's voters who have yet to make up their minds. Last Monday, towards the end of a particularly acrimonious televised duel that Mr. Prodi largely won, Il Cavaliere or The Knight as Mr. Berlusconi is known (he was "knighted" for services to the business community) announced he would be getting rid of a property tax affecting some 80 per cent of the population.

A week earlier, Mr. Berlusconi sent out a glossy brochure to an estimated 15 million households that extolled his achievements as Prime Minister and featured himself, his family, and his football team, AC Milan. One of the photographs showed Sonny Bono of the rock group U2 and the caption said Bono had congratulated the Prime Minister on his concern for the world's poor. In his rejoinder, Mr. Bono pointed out that under Mr. Berlusconi Italy had drastically cut down its aid to poor countries (Italy is 22nd of 25 EU aid givers) and that Mr. Berlusconi had used his photograph without permission.

Says economics professor Paola Costa: "Mr. Berlusconi's campaign has been so low in its tone, so vulgar, that I am ashamed to be Italian. Imagine an incumbent Prime Minister using really foul language to describe his political opponents or those who wish to vote for them. I cannot believe Italians could be so foolish as to once again place their trust in this man who has changed our laws to suit his personal business interests and robbed us blind. This latest proposal to abolish property tax, what sort of hole will that make in the national treasury which is in any case empty? Look at the condition of our roads, our infrastructure; Italy is falling behind economically. We are now known as the Sick Man of Europe. We will become sicker still if Berlusconi is elected."

The election has fast become a referendum for or against Mr. Berlusconi and the conservative Prime Minister, who has his back to the wall, is fighting back hard. His support has been falling as is evident from the polls, which place the conservative alliance dominated by his Forza Italia party five points behind the centre-left alliance led by Mr. Prodi.

Even some of Mr. Berlusconi's most avid supporters of five years ago feel Il Cavaliere has run out of steam. "I was convinced we had to adapt to a globalised world and that Mr. Berlusconi would be the ideal man to help us do that, which is why I voted for him five years ago. Who better, I thought, to lead Italy than a man who had created a fortune out of nothing, set up a media and real estate empire. I thought Italians like me could learn from him. But look at the economy. My business is struggling; my 28-year-old son is still living at home because despite a fancy business degree he still can't find a job. Mr. Berlusconi and his cronies have helped only themselves, not the nation," says Giovanni Pedrone, who owns a small business in the northern city of Vigevano.

Unashamed image-pushing

The 69-year-old Prime Minister who has tried to fight age with cosmetic surgery and sun lamps has unashamedly used his private television stations to relentlessly push his image. Italy's watchdog body, which ensures equal air time is given to both sides, has repeatedly fined his television stations for violating that rule. "But what is a Euro 250,000 fine for someone like Mr. Berlusconi? For a man whose personal fortune runs into billions [he is the world's 25th richest individual], such a sum is chicken feed, like buying a packet of cigarettes," said journalist Bruno Crimi.

While the Prime Minister has meted out tirades (he recently insulted members of the Italian Business Federation for being left-wing sympathisers), promises and insults, Mr. Prodi has maintained a dignified profile, concentrating on hard economic facts, pointing out the follies, errors and failures of Mr. Berlusconi's catastrophic five-year reign, relying on unvarnished straight talk about the difficulties that lie ahead.

"It's true, he can be boring. But at least he gives it to you straight between the eyes. The last time around everyone fell for Mr. Berlusconi's glittery promises. Mr. Prodi is at least not lying to us. He is a sound steady man and that appeals to me. Also some of Mr. Berlusconi's coalition partners are terrible people — racist, xenophobic. As a left-wing Christian I cannot tolerate that," said Amarigo Liveriero, the Mayor of Montano Lucino, a tiny Italian commune near Como.

The Opposition has hit back at Mr. Berlusconi by using slogans such as "We are proud to be bloody idiots." In a debate on Monday, after Mr. Berlusconi rattled off economic figures, Mr. Prodi, nicknamed Il Professore, likened the Prime Minister to a "drunk hanging on a lamppost." With the economy projected to grow by just 1.3 per cent this year and the budget deficit hitting 3.8 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), Mr. Prodi has had plenty of ammunition.

The former professor has systematically and efficiently attacked the economic record of the Berlusconi Government saying it had "lost control of public spending." Indeed, five years under Mr. Berlusconi and his allies — the openly racist Northern League and the reformed former fascist National Alliance — have left Italy divided between rich and poor, north and south, young and old, the employed and the jobless.

On Thursday, political observers tried to total what the two rivals' political and economic programmes would cost the public exchequer.

"After a long electoral campaign we will begin to calculate how much the promises made in the last weeks are really going to cost us, and ask whether the money is there to back up the pledges that the two coalitions have made," said Francesco Giavazzi of Correire della Sera.

The centre-right programme is estimated to cost between Euro 36 billion and Euro 101 billion a year, or between 2.5 per cent and 7.5 per cent of GDP, while Mr. Prodi's group is pledging measures that would cost between 1.4 per cent and 1.7 per cent of GDP.

The Turin daily la Stampa said making economic promises was "a very dangerous sport."

Its editorial writer said tax cuts offered by the centre-right would cost at least three per cent of GDP, with no plans to rein in public spending.

By pulling the property tax rabbit out of his hat, Mr. Berlusconi just might pull off the election once again, since such a move would benefit 80 per cent of his countrymen. "But then who cares for how that hole in the public finances will be filled? With Mr. Berlusconi showing the way Italians have become extremely egoistic. A more apt electoral slogan would be: `Me, me and myself and devil take the hindmost.' That's what we've come to in this country of great art, culture and creativity. Where have we fallen?" lamented Mr. Crimi.

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