Curioso come gli stranieri ancora si stupiscano delle gesta del presidente del consiglio italiano...
Beautiful women adorn the Italian government of Silvio Berlusconi. But wiretaps on his telephones reveal that experience and merit weren’t the qualifications he was looking for
Silvio Berlusconi, the 72-year-old Italian prime minister, is no stranger to scandal. Having survived 17 criminal trials without conviction, he has inured the Italian public to feelings of shock or indignation. Last January, the prosecutor’s office in Naples indicted Berlusconi and issued a report containing extracts of over 1,000 wiretapped conversations depicting Italy’s state TV network, RAI, as a casting couch that Berlusconi used to grant favours to aspiring actresses — he called them “le fanciulle mie” (my girls) — and to try to bring down the government. The report had no impact. In the spring elections, Berlusconi returned triumphantly to power after less than two years in opposition.
But in early summer, when Naples prosecutors indicated there were hundreds of other wiretaps, of a personal nature, which they requested be destroyed, Italy’s political-journalistic gossip mill began churning. Forget abuse of power and possible criminal wrongdoing — bring on the sex! Press reports speculated that the tapes contained raunchy comments involving Berlusconi and three female members of his government. Rumours about the prime minister’s shenanigans are often coloured by political allegiance: critics favour stories about a doddering septuagenarian addicted to penis pumps and mysterious injections; supporters paint him as a tireless Don Juan, capable of satisfying two or three women at once.
During the election campaign, Berlusconi bragged about how beautiful his party’s female candidates for parliament were compared with those of his opponents. Referring to Gianfranco Fini, leader of the Chamber of Deputies, and his principal coalition partner, he said of their move to make 30% of their candidates women: “There is a rush to say they’re all my and Gianfranco’s girlfriends. We are kind of supermen in this way, let’s be clear, but even we have our limits.”
In any case, Berlusconi has installed in the parliament, and in his government, a number of former starlets who gained fame in his TV empire. Antonio Di Pietro, a former prosecutor who heads one of the main opposition parties, publicly called Berlusconi un magnaccia, a colourful term for pimp, because of the time he’s spent finding work for “showgirls” rather than solving government problems. At a protest in Rome this summer, the comedian Sabina Guzzanti said of one Berlusconi appointee, Mara Carfagna, a former Miss Italy contestant who worked as a showgirl on Berlusconi’s TV stations before entering parliament: “You can’t make someone minister of equal opportunity just because she’s sucked your cock!” (Carfagna is suing Guzzanti for defamation and steadfastly denies any sexual relationship with Berlusconi.)
Vittorio Feltri, the editor of the right-wing newspaper Libero, took the opposite view: “Mussolini also had his women. We need a prime minister, not a Trappist monk.” Berlusconi talks openly about sex and does little to hide the fact that he’s had a face-lift and hair transplants. The Milan daily Corriere della Sera recently quoted him half-complaining, half-boasting about being treated like a king whose touch is thought to have healing powers: “Pregnant mothers ask me to put a hand on their stomachs, others on their eyes because they have trouble seeing.” As well as various women whose favours he is said to have enjoyed, Berlusconi has brought to parliament three of his criminal-defence attorneys (who devise legislation that may help their client); his tax consultant; several co-defendants in various corruption cases; a long list of former and current executives in his many companies; columnists and editors of his many newspapers; and his personal physician.
As a result, the seat of the Chamber of Deputies, with its beautiful marble floors and soaring ceilings, has become the new Via Veneto. On one of the days I visited, someone whispered “Ecco la Carfagna!” as the much maligned minister for equal opportunities moved through the crowd. Carfagna has undergone a makeover since her days on TV, when she favoured short skirts and décolleté blouses. Now she has a severe haircut and wears a sober business suit.
Decidedly less sober is the undersecretary of tourism, Michela Vittoria Brambilla, another former Miss Italy contestant, who once hosted a TV show called Mysteries of the Night. (A YouTube video depicts her visiting a Barcelona S&M club featuring men on leather leashes and rubdowns with exotic fruits.) She also worked as a TV reporter, and went on to become the MD of her family’s steel business. She still has TV looks, from her low-cut blouse and miniskirt down to her “slave sandals” with 4in heels and a web of leather ties that climb suggestively up her legs.
The minister of education, Mariastella Gelmini, is staid by comparison. Not only has she no past in showbiz; she actually has significant, if brief, experience in politics. She is trying to work out a plan to give more control to schools. (She and Brambilla also deny claims of impropriety.)
For several years, Niccolo Ghedini, one of Berlusconi’s criminal-defence attorneys, has shuttled between the Milan courtroom where Berlusconi has been tried on various corruption charges and the parliament, where he has helped write a series of laws that have kept Berlusconi and some of his associates out of prison. He told me why it was necessary to pass a law exempting Berlusconi from any criminal prosecution while he is prime minister. Italy’s judiciary is entirely autonomous; therefore, he reasoned, it is crucial to have greater defences for the executive.
It’s difficult not to be charmed by Umberto Scapagnini, Berlusconi’s personal physician, whose theories of longevity drew him into Berlusconi’s circle. He keeps Italy’s premier on a special regimen of diet, exercise, amino acids, vitamins and antioxidants. “Berlusconi is the most extraordinary psycho-physical subject I have ever examined,” he told me. Scapagnini has helped develop a method for measuring what he calls a person’s true biological age. “Berlusconi is 15 years younger than his chronological age. He has an amazing immune system and powers of resistance… he has the musculature and tone of a much, much younger man.” Scapagnini hopes to keep the PM alive until the age of 120. As for women, Scapagnini said: “Certainly, he has a strong sexual personality, and they are highly attracted to him. But it quickly turned to legend, and he has been the object of a disgraceful violation of privacy that would never be permitted in the US.”
Sex has always played a role in Berlusconi’s image. Since the early 1980s he has been the principal owner of the three largest private TV channels. He used to boast to his sales force about how, early in his career in real estate, he helped close a deal by seducing someone’s secretary. Berlusconi, in fact, introduced sex into Italian TV. Postwar Italy was dominated by the Catholic church, the Christian Democratic party and the Italian Communist party, all of which were rather prudish. Berlusconi broadcast Dallas and Dynasty; he introduced a game-show striptease called Colpo Grosso, which invariably ended with the contestants semi-naked.
He used his TV contacts to further his standing in the political world. We get a taste of this from a wiretapped conversation from December 31, 1986 (after Bettino Craxi, then prime minister, helped Berlusconi acquire his virtual monopoly on private television in Italy), between Berlusconi and a close adviser, Marcello Dell’Utri, who was suspected of laundering money for the Sicilian mafia. (He was convicted of conspiring with the mafia in 2004, and is appealing.) The conversation soon turned to sex. Berlusconi: “The new year is off to a bad start!” Dell’Utri: “Why?” Berlusconi: “Because two girls from Drive In [a Berlusconi TV show] were meant to come and they stood us up! And Craxi’s out of his mind with anger!” Dell’Utri: “What do you care about Drive In?” Berlusconi: “What do I care? It means we’re not going to f***! If the year starts like this, it means we won’t f*** any more!”
For all its froth, the latest gossip-fest originated in a serious criminal investigation. Prosecutors in Naples were investigating Agostino Sacca, the former head of the drama division of RAI, and his relations with Berlusconi. They contend that Sacca abused his position by doing favours for Berlusconi in exchange for help in setting up a film-production company while still on the public payroll. Wiretaps were obtained by the news magazine L’espresso and put up on its website. Recorded in 2007, when Berlusconi was out of power, they are a study in sycophancy. Sacca: “Presidente! Good evening, Presidente. How are you?” Berlusconi: “Getting by.” Sacca: “Getting by in grand form, I must say, even with so many difficulties. You remain the most beloved figure in the country.” Berlusconi: “Politically, I’m nowhere... but socially they mistake me for the Pope.” Sacca: “There’s a void... that you fill emotionally for the people. We feel it.” Then they turn to the business of the call. Berlusconi wants help in maintaining the centre right’s control of RAI, even though the centre left is running the government. Sacca: “You are the only one who has never asked me for anything.” Berlusconi: “Except from time to time about women... to boost the boss’s morale.” Then Berlusconi says he wants two actresses hired, one of them for an explicitly political purpose. Berlusconi: “Let me explain this thing.” Sacca: “No, Presidente, you don’t have to explain anything. You are a very civil, correct person...” Berlusconi: “I am trying to get the majority in the Senate and this Evelina Manna could be... she’s been recommended by someone with whom I’m negotiating.”
Berlusconi was trying to overturn the centre-left government of Romano Prodi. One senator claims he was offered money to switch sides, and in this phone call Berlusconi makes it clear that he is hoping to get a part for an actress on behalf of another centre-left senator in order to bring down the government. (Sacca and Berlusconi deny they did anything improper; Sacca says the actresses mentioned in the conversation weren’t hired. Sacca remains under investigation, and his lawyers have moved to have the case dismissed.)
Another set of wiretaps suggests the degree to which Berlusconi controlled RAI while out of office, despite being the principal owner of its main competitor, Mediaset. RAI hired Deborah Bergamini, Berlusconi’s former PA, as director of marketing. In 2007 it was reported that she was functioning as a kind of Mediaset agent inside the state TV system. In a 2005 conversation with a former colleague at Mediaset, she discussed how to minimise coverage of the Pope’s death in order not to depress the Catholic vote in regional elections that were about to take place.
When the election went badly for Berlusconi, Bergamini and her colleagues worked to delay broadcasting the results until the audience dropped off. Bergamini was let go from RAI after the conversations became public, but was given nearly $600,000 in severance. (She denies any collusion with Mediaset.) Today, she too sits in parliament.
Before leaving office in 2006, Berlusconi passed a law that gave party leaders almost total power over who could run for parliament. In the past, voters could vote for individual candidates; under new rules, Italians can vote only for a party, and the party bosses draw up the electoral lists. “I’m like Prince Charming. They were pumpkins and I turned them into parliamentarians,” Berlusconi once said of his parliamentary delegation. The law also contained a “prize” for the party winning a majority in parliament: extra seats to provide security for the governing coalition.
During a recent legislative session, Berlusconi proposed that only party leaders should bother to vote in parliament. “We are moving towards a kind of South American model of democracy,” Bruno Tabacci, a former Christian Democrat, member of the old guard, and hardly a political radical, says. Now in opposition, he served in Berlusconi’s centre-right coalition between 2001 and 2006. He says he voted against criminal-justice laws that appeared designed to benefit Berlusconi and his co-defendants. Such internal dissent is now inconceivable, Tabacci says. Gerardo D’Ambrosio, a centre-left senator who spent decades as a judge before entering politics, was blunter: “Parliament has become a farce.”
How farcical became clear early in the new session, when a photographer with a telephoto lens captured the text of a note from Berlusconi to two female deputies, Gabriella Giammanco and Nunzia De Girolamo: “Gabri, Nunzia, you look great together! Thanks for staying here, but it’s not necessary. If you have some romantic appointment at lunchtime, I authorise you to leave! Many kisses to both of you!!! ‘Your’ president.” The beginning of their response was also caught: “Dear (President), we accept romantic appointments only from you.”
Five years ago, Berlusconi saw a pretty news reader, Virginia Sanjust di Teulada, deliver a report about one of his economic decrees. The next day he sent her flowers with a note of congratulations. She replied with a thank-you note that included her mobile number. The next thing she knew, he was on the line, inviting her to lunch at the ministerial palace. She accepted. After lunch, according to an account by her ex-husband, Federico Armati, Berlusconi allegedly gave her a diamond bracelet and offered her a 2 1/4-month consultancy at the prime minister’s office, which paid about $50,000. This was done with a formal ministerial decree, which was withdrawn when the press heard about it. But Sanjust subsequently got her own TV show on RAI, and her ex-husband, who worked for the intelligence services, got a desirable transfer; then, after he and his ex-wife became embroiled in a custody battle, Armati was demoted.
Berlusconi’s lawyers insist he was only helping a young woman in need. Sanjust’s lawyers also deny any wrongdoing. As with the conversation with Sacca, we will probably never know if Berlusconi broke the law in this case, thanks to the legislation his lawyers pushed through parliament giving the prime minister immunity from prosecution while in office. Armati had documented his former wife’s dealings with Berlusconi. He claimed she used her influence to have him transferred and his pay slashed. He threatened to expose Berlusconi’s dealings with his ex-wife, he says — and suddenly gained a new position, with a salary of around $8,000 a month.
Armati also insists Berlusconi gave his ex-wife considerable sums in cash. (Berlusconi’s lawyers deny this.) There is no documentation for the alleged payments, but arrangements appear to have been made for Sanjust to live in a flat overlooking the Campo de’ Fiori in Rome. The official buyer was Salvatore Sciascia, the chief financial officer of Berlusconi’s company Fininvest. He had been convicted of bribing members of the Italian tax police on Berlusconi’s behalf. Instead of firing Sciascia for his role in the bribery affair, Berlusconi brought him into the Senate, where he is one of several senators who have been convicted of serious crimes.
That none of this troubles the Italian public says a lot about the opposition Berlusconi faces. “The real drama here is not the sex farce but the total collapse and fragmentation of the centre left,” says one observer. Berlusconi, despite two previous lacklustre terms in office, was re-elected this year because of the failures of the aborted 20-month Prodi government. The fact remains that Italy has seriously declined during the 14 years that Berlusconi has dominated Italian politics. Crony capitalism has proved to be inefficient as well as corrupt. In the early 1990s, Italy’s GDP was about 15% larger than that of Great Britain; now its economy is 23% lower. When Wall Street crashed, and the current financial crisis swept Europe, Berlusconi urged his countrymen to keep buying stocks — he recommended Mediaset, among others — and to keep spending. As an example, he headed off to a disco, telling the crowd there, according to the Rome daily La Repubblica: “If I sleep for three hours, I still have enough energy to make love for another three.”
The financial catastrophe has only increased his power — as prime minister he’ll undoubtedly have control over public monies allocated for private corporate bailouts. Even the rampant sexism of Berlusconi’s behaviour towards women in politics — the use of women as political arm candy — is not without economic consequences. Italy has the smallest percentage of women in the workplace of any leading European nation — which is a serious drag on economic growth and productivity. A recent study by the Bank of Italy showed that if employment levels among Italy’s women were the same as those among men, the country’s GDP would be 17% higher. Other studies link Italy’s birth rate, among the lowest in the world, to the extreme asymmetry between men and women in Italy. That is unlikely to be cured by the royal touch.
Originally published in the November 3, 2008 issue of The New Yorker; www.newyorker.com
