Berlusconi’s confidence vote gamble backfires

• Tweet
• 

• Tweet
• 

Silvio Berlusconi, the media tycoon and three-time Italian premier who had been goading his center-right People of Freedom Party into pulling the rug out from under P.M. Enrico Letta, relented early Wednesday in the face of an unprecedented internal revolt. Already struggling to weather the storm from his recent conviction for tax fraud, Berlusconi had apparently gambled that toppling the government with a vote of no confidence in center-left leader Letta offered hope for yet another political revival with new elections.

But some of his most loyal supporters in parliament refused to go along, necessitating an awkward last-minute retreat by the most outsized figure in Italian politics. “Putting together the expectations and the fact that Italy needs a government that produces institutional and structural reforms, we have decided to vote for the confidence motion, not without internal pain,” he said in a speech to the Senate.

While the investor class and E.U. officials cheered the measured response from Italy’s conservative firebrand, Berlusconi now looks more vulnerable than ever, not just because he is poised to face house arrest for his crimes but also because the center-right has begun to envision a future without him.

To be sure, he remains Italian conservatives’ best-known public figure and has a loyal following on that end of the ideological spectrum, but his personal foibles and legal troubles have dented his brand and sent one-time admirers scrambling. The presence of the Five Star movement on the fringe of the political scene (but now with substantial representation in parliament) serves to incentivize cooperation between the mainstream center-left and center-right parties that have traditionally despised one another, a dynamic to which Berlusconi has struggled to adapt. He represents exactly what Five Star’s charismatic leader Beppe Grillo rants against — an insider with connections in the business community who has shown little hesitation about enjoying the spoils of power. Even if Five Star can’t force its way into a governing coalition, it may already have sped Berlusconi’s decline by discouraging the center-right from seeking another vote, fearful of further gains for Grillo.

Of course, Berlusconi has been left for dead many times before, but a public rebuke from major conservative politicians is not what he needed right now. The next question, then, is when rising stars like Angelo Alfano, whom Berlusconi has been grooming as his political successor, will decide he does them more harm than good. Alfano was among those center-right pols who broke with Berlusconi on the confidence vote, and every time the lieutenants challenge him and survive, they likely grow more assured in their ability to carry on as well — or better — free of Berlusconi’s baggage. His media empire and tremendous personal wealth still surely carry some weight and protect Berlusconi from total exile, but his episode serves as an ominous sign of what his political future may look like.