The last queen of Italy is being laid to rest. It is early February, and the ceremony is taking place at Hautecombe in France, because the male line of the Italian "royal family"-the principi di Savoia-are still barred from entering Italy. They've been exiles ever since the 1946 referendum in which the country voted to become a republic. Prior to that, Maria Jos?, the matriarch now being mourned, was queen of Italy for little more than a month.
Her funeral is the occasion for a Savoia public relations offensive: the family wants to return to Italy, and the funeral, just a few months before a general election, is the perfect opportunity to publicise their case. It's a bizarre spectacle. Most of European royalty, bar the Windsors, turn out in support: the Bourbons from Spain, the Romanovs, the Prince of Monaco, Luxembourg's Grand Duke and Duchess. Outside the church there's a huge screen conveying the service to the gathering of a few hundred Italian royalists from Turin and Milan. Some have been singing the March of the Savoia: "Sound glad trumpets, beat the drums: vivailrè, vivailrè!"
During the communion, the choir sing Verdi's "O Signore dal tetto natio." Later, while chatting to journalists, "Prince" Emanuele Filiberto's phone goes off. It doesn't ring; it beeps out the Italian national anthem, the Inno di Mameli. "Shrewd lad, that," says one Italian journalist standing next to me. His father, the ruddy, jowly-cheeked Vittorio Emanuele, is a little less adept with the media. "We'll see you in Naples in four months," he says optimistically. Does that mean, asks one of the journalists in a huddle around the "monarch," that he will take an oath of loyalty to the Italian republic? "No, no, I don't want to talk about that, absolutely not," he snaps. His wife leans towards him and whispers something in French. "Yes, yes, of course," he then says stiffly.
In the calm before its election storm, Italy is undergoing a mini "Savoia revival." Not for the first time, there is much discussion about changing the Italian constitution (which currently decrees: "for the former king of the House of Savoia, his consorts and male descendants, entry and sojourn in [Italian] national territory is forbidden.") For many Italians, though, the Savoia are the cause of the darkest days of Italy's 20th century. What democratic instincts King Vittorio Emanuele III possessed quickly folded in the face of Mussolini's "march on Rome" in 1922. Years later, in 1938, he signed the country's anti-semitic "race laws." The king swiftly swapped sides in 1943, after the Allied landings in Sicily, thus starting the war between fascists and partisans which raged until April 1945 and, some would argue, way beyond. In exile, Vittorio Emanuele has become one of Europe's main arms dealers. In 1978 he accidentally shot and killed a German tourist from on board his yacht.
It's a strange "first family": the now capofamiglia, Vittorio Emanuele, is usually decked out in jeans and brogues, and is always irascible. His wife, Marina Doria, is the daughter of a biscuit magnate; she was four times world waterskiing champion in the 1950s. She's often photographed as she slips back into Italy to shop. Most visible of the three is their son, Emanuele Filiberto, whose lanky hair and unshaven face is used to promote various products, and who occasionally commentates on Juventus matches for Italian television from his house in Geneva.
"They are a very dodgy and very stupid family," says Enrico Deaglio, political analyst and editor of Diario. "Every time they're on the verge of being let into the country, they go and say something scandalous." This time, however, it looks as if the Savoia might finally pull it off. On 13th May, Italians go to the polls. Silvio Berlusconi and his right-wing coalition seem almost certain of victory, not least because of a populist promise to clamp down on immigrants. The Savoia, it seems, will be the exception.
Italians of 18 and above elect 630 deputati (aged 25 or over) of the parliamentary camera. Italians citizens aged 21 and above also elect 315 senatori (40 or older) in the senato (there are nine "senators for life," the equivalent of life peers: either former presidents, such as Giulio Andreotti, or dignitaries such as Gianni Agnelli, head of Fiat). The eventual make-up of the parliament is decided both by a first-past-the-post system (75 per cent) and by proportional representation (25 per cent).
On the surface the election is a presidential show-down between-on the left-the former mayor of Rome, Francesco Rutelli, and-on the right-il cavaliere Silvio Berlusconi. Dozens of political parties are lined up in one coalition or the other. The bucolic left-wing coalition-"the Olive Tree"-is made up of "the Sunflower" (greens and socialists), "the Daisy" (the democrats, the popular party, the union of democrats of Europe, the "Dini List") and "the Oak" (the former communist party, now called the democratic party of the left or PDS), and the communist party proper.
The "Pole of Liberties" is Berlusconi's right-wing coalition, made up of his own Forza Italia party, the "post-fascist" National Alliance, and the separatists/federalists of the Northern League. Other parties supporting him are from the "white flower," made up of the two broadly Catholic parties, the CCD and the CDU. Various fringe parties (including the refounded communist party, "Di Pietro List," the radicals) have refused to adhere to either coalition, preferring to barter with their votes in the aftermath of 13th May.
Few voters understand those coalitions, or what they stand for. It's hard even to know what has happened in the last five years: during the recently concluded thirteenth parliament of the Italian republic (1996 to 2001) 158 politicians changed allegiance and the country had three different prime ministers (Romano Prodi, Massimo D'Alema, and Giuliano Amato) presiding over four different governments. Political debate and front page scoops are often simply about who's building or breaking which coalition, or who's redesigning their party flag or currently reinventing themselves as a politician of the right, or of the left.
Despite the lack of ideological debate, the temperature of the election campaign has been scorching. For months, the two competing coalitions have been screaming personal abuse at one another. At Christmas there were two minor bomb blasts: one allegedly anarchist bomb placed among the spires of Milan's cathedral, followed by the fascist "reply," targeting Il Manifesto, which calls itself a "communist daily." Smears, scandals, accusations and court cases have piled up. Leading politicians have been arrested or investigated: one PDS politician in Tuscany has been arrested for taking bribes; a Forzista in Calabria sentenced to five years for collusion with the local mafia; another Forzista in Milan has been arrested, accused of extortion. The president of the republic, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, has appealed for dignity, but the strange, hysterical campaign continues.
Berlusconi himself is short and always wears a suit. He is 64, but looks younger thanks to his face-lift and permanently carrot-coloured skin. He appears, in the words of a famous song, to own everything from padre nostro (our father) to cosa nostra (the mafia): he is the padrone of, among other things, three national television channels, a national newspaper, AC Milan football club, the publishing house Mondadori (by far Italy's largest) and until recently the ubiquitous Standa supermarkets. Nor does he baulk at exploiting his private empire for public promotion. When January's "appearance ratings" were revealed (calculating the percentage of time which television channels dedicate to each party) Berlusconi's Mediaset channels were shown to have dedicated 53 per cent of political reporting to their boss's Forza Italia; the PDS received 3.3 per cent of the channels' political coverage. Just as the election campaign began, Berlusconi sacked the AC Milan manager: a move seen as another cynical attempt to raise his profile.
More seriously, the mysterious beginnings of Berlusconi's career have come back to haunt him. Despite his denials, Berlusconi was (like Vittorio Emanuele, the "Savoian prince") a member of the sinister P2 masonic lodge, members of which have been responsible for some of the most iconic crimes of Italian post-war history. Nor does anyone quite understand how Berlusconi, a former cruise-ship crooner, managed in the space of a few years to build a financial empire which now dwarfs all others except Fiat. The accusation that Berlusconi's beginnings were aided by epic money-laundering on behalf of the mafia have dominated the campaigning. A new book, L'Odore dei soldi, "the smell of money," was published in March, and given ample publicity on those television channels (of the state RAI network) still outside Berlusconi's reach. The book was based on an interview with an anti-mafia judge, Paolo Borsellino, just before he was killed in 1992. During the interview Borsellino had hinted that the mafia, having at its disposal vast sums of money from drug smuggling, laundered it through companies in the north, including (possibly) Berlusconi's Fininvest company.
Berlusconi's response to the (hardly new) accusation of being a closet mafioso was to behave exactly as if that's what he was. As RAI ran long debates on the subject, Berlusconi was indignant, aggressive, threatening. "Contain yourself" he screamed to one RAI presenter in a live telephone call. Thereafter, he refused to appear on the state television channels, as did members of his coalition. His allies talk of cleaning up RAI after the election.
Berlusconi's own Mediaset channels pleaded with viewers not to believe the allegations. On "Rete 4," for example, the "newscaster" Emilio Fede couldn't contain his outrage, banging his fists on his desk as he denounced the dirty tricks of the left. Each time he tried to introduce another story he paused, frowned, and almost on the verge of tears, returned to defend his boss. Not for the first time, the nation's television channels became, like the country at large, polarised into shrill declarations of love or loathing for Berlusconi.
The actual issue, of whether there was any truth in the allegations, of whether Berlusconi really is dangerously close to collusion with organised crime, became lost. "It's all true," complains Enrico Deaglio. "Money was being recycled. Look at the precedents, at all those cases against Berlusconi for falso in bilancio, for corruzione di magistrati." Deaglio is a man of the left, but others have been equally appalled by the prospect of a Berlusconian Italy. Indro Montanelli is Italy's Bill Deedes: a right-wing nonagenarian who used to be editor of Berlusconi's paper, Il Giornale, before resigning because of editorial interference. In recent weeks he has called the Forza Italia leader a "systematic liar," someone whose methods are "of the truncheon... akin to those of fascism."
The "Pole of Liberties" does indeed embrace many former or closet fascists. The National Alliance ("Alleanza Nazionale") is simply the new name of the "Movimento Sociale Italiano," the post-war fascist party. Its leader, Gianfranco Fini, is a chess player, and he always appears measured, calm and cerebral. In the ranks of his party, however, are many who have dark pasts, former fascists who took a very active part in the country's anni di piombo, its years of political terrorism in the late 1960s and 1970s. One parliamentary commission has just concluded a 13-year investigation into the secrets of Italian terrorism. It has frequently pointed the finger at parliamentarians from Fini's National Alliance. The granddaughter of Il Duce, Alessandra Mussolini, is also a deputato for the party. (During a recent debate about sexual harassment, Mussolini became involved in a full-scale fight with a government minister, a female kick-boxer from the refounded communist party.)
More extreme and more maverick is Umberto Bossi, the gravel-voiced leader of the Northern League. He's always decked out in the party's green livery and its symbol: a chariot wheel. He practices qualunquismo or "everymanism"-in other words, vote-grabbing populism. His base is the rich, industrialised north which views Rome and the south as the epitome of all that is wrong with Italy. ("Garibaldi didn't unite Italy," goes the joke, "he divided Africa.") When a piece of land at Lodi was set aside for a mosque recently, Bossi's people protested, marching under banners proclaiming that "our pigs have urinated on that land." It was Bossi who, withdrawing his support from the government, caused Berlusconi's fall in 1994. (Many suspect that, in government, the frictions between Fini's largely southern "integralist Italians," and Bossi's federalist northerners, will quickly reopen. "If they win," says Deaglio, "I really wouldn't expect the right to be able to govern the country. I suspect that, as in 1994, a Berlusconi government will last very little time.")
Meanwhile, francesco Rutelli has toured the country in a specially designed "olive" train (he is, after all, a former green). Next to Berlusconi, Rutelli-youngish, greying hair, ready smile-appears bland. Nor can anyone remember what the left has done in five years of government. Rutelli wasn't even part of that government; he was mayor of Rome. Many incumbent government ministers (including Tullio De Mauro, the education minister and Umberto Veronesi, the health minister), aren't standing for re-election, prompting the suspicion that they're abandoning a derailed train.
It's hard to know where and why it has gone so wrong for the left. When Romano Prodi won the 1996 election, it seemed that Italy's bipartitismo imperfetto (with the christian democrats, or the right, permanently in power, and the communists, or the left, permanently excluded) had finally, after 50 years, come to an end. In power, however, an alliance of ex-communists and technocrats like Prodi proved to be strict monetarists, determined to prepare Italy for entry into the euro. In their five years in government, net borrowing as a percentage of GDP has fallen from over 7 per cent to 0.3 per cent; the national debt has fallen, as has inflation. Only taxes have increased, and new ones been introduced (the "tax for Europe"). Most people suggest that Prodi's government, and those which followed, have been very successful financially and fiscally. The consequence, however, is that politically they have been a disaster.
Italy has always had one of the highest voter turnouts in the west. During the electoral showdowns between communists and christian democrats, voters were well-drilled, and turnout was invariably about 95 per cent. In 1987, though, only 84.4 per cent of the electorate voted and, in 1996, 77 per cent. This year, the figure is expected to be well below 60 per cent: absenteeism is likely to damage the left much more than the right. (The latest election intelligence is that Berlusconi will comfortably win the camera or lower house, partly thanks to the overwhelming right-wing preference of first time voters between 18 and 21. The senato, or upper house, may not fall to Berlusconi because you must be 21 or over to vote for it.)
The difference between the two presidential candidates was recently underlined at a rally of Confindustria (the equivalent of the CBI) in Parma. Rutelli stumbled through an economic analysis in English, which no one understood. The next day, Berlusconi (relayed live on Mediaset channels) was like the usual slick showman: relaxed and jokey, a man at ease amongst fellow-businessmen. He invoked "Signora Tatcher," and promised sweeping tax cuts (he intends to reduce the top rate of income tax from 50 to 33 per cent). He received ecstatic applause.
Berlusconi's other big vote winner is the immigration issue. Italy, for decades one of the world's largest exporters of human beings, has become a net importer in the space of a few years. The country has invariably been the first port of call for refugees from the Balkans, Eastern Europe and North Africa. For such an homogenous society, and one with, significantly, the lowest birth-rate in Europe, this sudden influx has been traumatic. The number of clandestini in Italy is estimated at least half a million, and every day more arrive, thrown out on to the shores of the Adriatic from gommoni (inflatables).
"He is loved," says Marcello Veneziani, a leader writer for Il Giornale. "He is loved because he represents the eruption of Italian life into politics. Here's a man who's done it by himself: he has built up and invested in a telecommunications business in a way which no one else has managed to emulate. Moderates in Italy, all those who used to vote for the christian democrats, look at him with admiration: how can he not be good for the country? I think the fact that he's demonised by the left almost helps him."
You can understand the attraction of Berlusconi. He is what many Italians aspire to be: a rich football fan who's always on television. He is, like Bettino Craxi before him, a charismatic leader in a sea of grey politicians and confusing coalitions. Craxi, indeed, was for years Berlusconi's mentor (and best man at his second marriage). Craxi died last year in self-imposed exile in Tunisia (having been convicted of taking billions of lire in bribes for government contracts), but former members of his "socialist" party have recently allied themselves to il cavaliere.
"The problem in Italy," according to Veneziani, "is that we now have more or less a two-party [rather, a two coalition] system, but we don't have a bipartite culture like the British or the Americans. Here neither side will accept that the other has the right to rule. The result is this exasperating culture of desperate smear and slander. And in an election without ideas, the original ideological referents of the parties-fascism or communism-merely prompt simple, visceral hatred of the other side."
Once in power, Berlusconi will start rewriting the constitution. He wants more federalism and almost certainly the removal of that clause banning the Savoia from Italy. Nobody seriously thinks that Italian democracy is in danger, but it will be a very different democracy, with very different television.
The probable return of both Berlusconi and the principi di Savoia on 13th May has a certain symmetry-and it all seems very Italian. Both Berlusconi and Vittorio Emanuele were members of the P2 lodge. The former has been accused of everything from recycling the mafia's money, to blackmail, bribery and tax evasion; Vittorio Emanuele was responsible for killing an innocent tourist. But in Italy there's no such thing as "crime and punishment," only "crime and confession" (pentitismo), or better still, "crime and denial." There's nothing that a nod towards the purple cassocks or towards the so-called "togas" can't resolve: everything is forgiven, or simply forgotten. "In Italy, as in chemistry," wrote one columnist recently about various political resurrections, "everything is created, nothing is destroyed, everything is transformed."
