Two weeks after the centre-right coalition suffered a crucial defeat at the local elections, losing control of Milan without gaining it in any major city (Naples, Turin), more than 26 million people sent the prime minster a clear message of distrust, casting their vote in four referendums which Berlusconi himself invited to boycott.
The national referendums sought to cancel four different measures which had been passed by the Berlusconi government in the last few years: two questions over privatisation of water, one on nuclear power and one on the ministerial exemption from court cases. In Italy referendums are only valid if more than 50 per cent of the electorate cast their vote. To try and prevent the quorum being reached, Berlusconi invited people to shun the polls and used all his influence to prevent state television and his own private media empire from informing and discussing the referendums.
He also used his political position to try to change the decree reviving nuclear power, which was the most controversial referendum (especially after the Japanese disaster), in order to avoid the vote, so that the general consultation would have been less interesting for the electorate. Fortunately the Supreme Court rejected his attempt and confirmed the vote also on this issue.
All these fraudulent gimmicks drew attention away from the actual questions and transformed them into a public vote of confidence on Berlusconi, already wounded after defeat at the local elections.
On several occasions during the last 16 years, referendum organisers had been unable to obtain the quorum, and inability had discredited the referendum as an ineffective weapon. And so, Berlusconi was trying to use the general disaffection towards the instrument as a means to avoid a vote on the merit of the issues.
As a result, more than the actual questions, the focus of the campaign was on the possibility for a new political engagement for the Italian people after more than a decade dominated by a populist leader.
On the one hand, there was a coalition of parties, organisations, youth and students’ associations, which through new media and unconventional campaigns urged people to cast their vote, in order to guarantee the quorum and hence the legitimacy of the referendums. On the other, there was a man, once the most powerful in his country, able to connect with the public mood, now fighting to save his political career.
In this new political climate, the opposition needs to build a credible alternative: the Democratic party, the main opposition force, was able to build a strong movement around the referendums and to mobilise against Berlusconi. However, the main element of cohesion between the opposition parties seems still to be the removal of Berlusconi; no standalone organic alternative is really emerging.
This long-wished-for event is not a reality yet, and unless his own party and allies desert him, Berlusconi can still stay in power for another couple of years. His political power and his credibility, however, are undermined and the next general election could mark a new start for a country that Berlusconi drove to the margins of Europe and its lowest-ever level of international credibility.