One of the most defining aspects of the personality of the former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi It is that, basically, he does not accept being in the background. In her business career first and politically after her, she has always shown herself as the ‘prima donna’ of Italian public life. So in his current role as a minority partner in the nationalist government of Giorgia Meloni he was now very uncomfortable.
Although up to now Berlusconi had formally followed the guidelines of the right-wing coalition of which his Forza Italia party is a part, Il Cavaliere He has highlighted his disagreements with Meloni on more than one occasion in recent months. Especially in what has to do with the war in Ukraine, a matter in which he has harshly criticized Volodimir Zelenski and has compromised and hindered the country’s foreign policy.
The tycoon has taken advantage of the slightest opportunity to defend his friend Vladimir Putin and to openly criticize the Ukrainian president. The last time was just over a month ago, when the president of Forza Italia told the media that if he “had been the head of the Italian government, he would never have gone to Kiev to talk to Zelensky.” A few words that have once again called into question Italy’s commitment to Ukraine and the Western bloc.
[Berlusconi culpa a Zelenski de la guerra y pide que se rinda ante Putin “para llegar a la paz”]
Berlusconi has spent too much time going against his partners in the Executive. Although according to internal Forza Italia sources quoted by the Italian press, in recent days he has adopted a change of course. Il Cavaliere He has ordered his people to remain loyal to the rest of the coalition, led by Giorgia Meloni (Brothers of Italy) and by the nationalist Matteo Salvini (League).
Based on the information published by the Italian press, there is a clear protagonist in his political turn towards the Italian Prime Minister: it is martha fascinates (1990), graduated in Humanities from La Sapienza University in Rome and has been a member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies since 2018. Fascina has been married to Berlusconi since 2020, despite the fact that the former Italian Prime Minister pointed out in occasion that “the relationship of love and esteem that unites me with Mrs. Marta Fascina is so deep and solid that there is no need to formalize it with a marriage”.
Berlusconi, and Marta Fascina at a polling station during the 2022 legislative elections.
Reuters
According to a Forza Italia senator who spoke anonymously to the newspaper La Repubblicathe deputies of the formation would have received “clear instructions” from Berlusconi, “through Marta Fascina”, to mark the new line of the party: “A line that implies fewer problems for Meloni and that places those who, in recent months, have generated tensions on more than one occasion”.
The press openly talks about a “new Fascina current” within Forza Italiapromoted even by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni herself, who points out that the former President of the European Parliament and current Foreign Minister, the forzist Antonio Tajani, is the reference interlocutor between the head of the Italian Government and Silvio Berlusconi. “Forza Italia will not create more problems for Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni”, he assures these days La Repubblica.
[Silvio Berlusconi, absuelto de comprar el silencio de las mujeres que acudían a sus fiestas ‘bunga-bunga’]
Other important protagonists of the consolidation of the turn of Silvio Berlusconi so as not to hinder the action of the Italian Government have been their eldest children, Marina and Pier Silvio Berlusconi; who have played a key role in resizing the father’s egos from the moment the conservative coalition won the last general election last September.
In fact, it has been the Prime Minister herself, Giorgia Meloni, who has been directly involved in convincing the older sons of the Italian magnate to talk seriously with their father and convince him not to continue boycotting the Executive.
One of the signs by which it can be deduced that Berlusconi has returned to his most conciliatory facet has to do with the relationship he maintains with his right-hand man in the party, Gianni Letta, his main adviser within the political and institutional sphere for 30 years. years. Last year there was a moment of rupture between the two. After the fall of Mario Draghi as prime minister, of which Berlusconi and his party were co-authors, Gianni Letta was completely pushed aside by Il Cavalierewho did not agree with bringing down ‘Super Mario’.
However now, according to Corriere della Sera, Gianni Letta has once again been the hinge of understanding and dialogue between Berlusconi and the members of Forza Italia, although Letta has never been an official member of the party. According to sources consulted by the aforementioned newspaper, the reunion of the former prime minister with Letta is also the work of Marta Fascina and Berlusconi’s children.
[Los lazos de Berlusconi con Putin generan dudas en el Gobierno que pretende diseñar Meloni]
Silvio Berlusconi and his party belong to the coalition with a nationalist majority that swept the polls in the last general elections, obtaining an absolute majority in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate; something that had not happened since the time when precisely Il Cavaliere he was prime minister.
At the head of this coalition is Meloni, who over time has managed to consolidate his leadership and to resize his minority partners: Salvini as a companion and nationalist “rival”; and Berlusconi, as an incombustible figure in Italian politics. A former prime minister who, sooner or later, had to accept the generational change and admit the indisputable political leadership of Giorgia Meloni, who 15 years ago was his youngest minister and who today aspires to exhaust the legislature. A not insignificant objective in the case of Italy, the country of political volatility.
