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  Girls, Power and Mamma: How Silvio Berlusconi Became Italy's Superman

Girls, Power and Mamma How Silvio Berlusconi Became Italy's Superman

By Alexander Smoltczyk

Part 2: 'Technically Almost Immortal'

Like his power, this statesman also wants to immortalize his body. He takes elixirs against aging, doesn't smoke and avoids meat. Recently, Berlusconi even cancelled an appointment with Günther Oettinger, the governor of the German state of Baden-Württemberg, because he was expected at a spa in Umbria for a full-body treatment based on the methods of Dr. Mességué, a well-known French herbalist. He portrays himself as an omnipresent workaholic who handles everything. "I am constantly working and I don't sleep more than two hours a night," he claims.

His personal doctor, Umberto Scapagnini, has already declared Berlusconi to be "technically almost immortal." According to Scapagnini, "his physique and his mind have already demonstrated superhuman strength. He is genetically extraordinary."

In other words, there is no reason Berlusconi could not serve as president for the rest of his life after the current legislative period ends in 2013. By then, he will have left his imprint on Italy for two decades. The country has been reflected in Berlusconi, even when he was not in power. Berlusconi set the agenda and defined the language and style of politics. Without him, there would be no system of two camps, no middle-class voting bloc and, presumably, no reformist left.

He has seen seven opposition leaders come and go. After the February resignation of Walter Veltroni, who was considered a promising competitor until recently, there are few opposing forces left.

Berlusconi, a completely non-religious (and divorced) billionaire, has even gained the Vatican's support. All it took were a few well-placed and well-timed statements against reproductive technology and assisted suicide.

"The Italians are afflicted by a strange desire for bondage," former President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi said recently. For lack of an alternative, Ciampi said, they would put up with anything, preferring to discuss the prime minister's starlets than his budget deficit. For British political scientist Colin Crouch, Berlusconi's Italy is a prime example of a "post-democratic society."

Perhaps this is true. Ultimately, democracy has nothing to do with expertise but with consensus. And hardly any other European politician is a more efficient consensus machine than this outrageous popular man, complete with his facelifts and permanent smile.

In Germany, Berlusconi's policies are usually perceived as utter nonsense. After all, this is a man who, at a summit meeting in Trieste, hid behind a column and startled German Chancellor Angela Merkel when he called out "boo!"

His critics forget that Berlusconi, as a good populist, has instructed his ministers to deal with precisely those plagues that are often cited as examples of typical ineptitude in Italy, a country Germany's Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin called a "stinky boot" -- filled with unruly strikes, uncollected garbage in Naples, street prostitution, the Byzantine frenzy of regulation, centralism, do-nothing civil servants and a sluggish judicial system. His approach is popular, especially when everyone knows how difficult it is to reform a country in which regulations are commonly treated as an insult to one's intelligence.

Despite his vast power in the media, Berlusconi has been voted out of office twice. Each time, the left had the opportunity to do things better, and each time it failed. Berlusconi was not reelected a year ago because voters watch too much television, but because they are disillusioned. Berlusconi was the only candidate who stood a chance of assembling a majority capable of forming a government. In other words, he wasn't elected out of affection, but out of pragmatism and soberness. Political expediency was also part of the mix.

Berlusconi has captured this country, lost it and captured it again. He has betrayed it many a time, and he has seduced it time and again. There is probably only one woman he has ever really loved. There was only one woman for whom he consistently interrupted high-level talks, and only one woman whose pearls of wisdom he felt were worth repeating to Putin, Bush, Blair and even the pope: "La Mamma Rossa," his mother Rosella, who he adored more than anyone else, and who died last year and was mourned by half the nation.

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