Elezioni viste da qua

A parte i commenti politici che non si addicono a questo blog, volevo fare notare come la CNN e il NY Times siano interessati ai 'dettagli' della politica italiana (in grassetto)

CNN:
Italian billionaire Berlusconi 'wins' election

ROME, Italy (CNN) -- Billionaire conservative former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is on track to become Italy's next leader after his center-left rival Walter Veltroni Monday conceded general election defeat.
The antics of charismatic billionaire Silvio Berlusconi have endeared him to Italian voters in the past
Incomplete election results show Berlusconi, 71, with a commanding lead in both houses of parliament.
Veltroni, who recently stepped down as mayor of Rome, delivered a concession speech live Monday night on Italian television.
Berlusconi, a charismatic center-right billionaire who served two terms as prime minister, and Veltroni were the two main contenders among 32 candidates vying to replace Romano Prodi, who stepped down as prime minister in January.
The new prime minister will lead Italy's 63rd government since the end of World War II. Arcane electoral laws giving many small parties in parliament a disproportionate amount of power are blamed in part for the frequent collapses of the nation's governments.
Berlusconi of the People of Freedom Party, was prime minister from May 1994 to January 1995 and again from April 2005 to May 2006. He then narrowly lost a re-election bid to Prodi.
While Berlusconi is nearly 20 years older than the 52-year-old Veltroni, the media magnate's plastic surgery, hair transplant, and year-round tan have turned him into the eternal youngster of Italian politics. His bypass surgery since leaving office seemed to have little to no impact on the election. Berlusconi ran his campaign with his trademark bravado, arguing he is the only one who could give Italy the future it needs.


NY Times:

But with a bad economy and frustration high that Italy has lost ground to the rest of Europe, was unclear whether they voted for Mr. Berlusconi out of affection or, as many experts said, as the least bad choice after the nation weathered two years of inaction from the fractured center-left government.

While Mr. Berlusconi's coalition won a convincing majority in both houses of Parliament, the victory came with much help from the Northern League, which advocates a federal system to favor the more prosperous north. The party caused Mr. Berlusconi's first government in 1994 to collapse — a history that center-left leaders made clear in defeat.

"A season of opposition now begins against a majority that will have a hard time keeping together things that are difficult to keep together," said Walter Veltroni, the former mayor of Rome and leader of the Democratic Party who ran against Mr. Berlusconi. "I don't know how long this majority will last."

The Democratic Party will now be the largest in opposition.

Mr. Berlusconi, 71, Italy's third richest man and owner of a media and sports empire, did not make a victory speech. But in a brief phone call to a national television show Mr. Berlusconi, declaring himself "moved" by the victory, reached out to Mr. Veltroni to make reforms most Italians say are badly needed to get Italy moving again.

"We are always open to working together with the opposition," he said. He will make a fuller statement on Tuesday.

The election — called just two years after Mr. Berlusconi lost to the now-departing center-left prime minister Romano Prodi — was considered one of the least exciting in memory, with many Italians doubting that either candidate could actually accomplish any meaningful change.

But in some basic ways, the election signaled a decisive shift in a nation whose politics have been unstable because of the involvement of many small parties with narrow interests. As head of the newly born Democratic Party — the merging of the two largest center-left parties — Mr. Veltroni had refused to run with far-left parties as Mr. Prodi had done.

As a result, the ANSA news agency reported that the number of parties in the parliament's lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, would drop from 26 to just 6. On both the left and right, experts said — and in some cases lamented — the election showed a shift toward a more American- or British-style system of two dominant parties.

"It's a Waterloo," runs Tuesday's headline in the moderate left daily Il Riformista.

Its editor, Antonio Polito, a departing senator from the now-defunct Margherita party, said: "The left is disappearing for the first time in history." Referring to Mr. Veltroni's party, he added, "The only party that managed to save itself after two disastrous Prodi years is a party that is modeling itself after the Democratic or Labor parties," in the United States and Britain respectively.

Mr. Berlusconi's spokesman, Paolo Bonaiuti, echoed the analysis. "Italy has rewarded a simplification of the political panorama."