http://www.globecartoon.com/

La legge “porcata” ha distrutto i partitini, finalmente. La Lega, vera vincitrice di queste elezioni, già delinea che cosa ci aspetterà per il futuro. Sono curioso di vedere.

Secondo il NYT la figura politica di Silvio Berlusconi è ispirata a Barack Obama …

Silvio Berlusconi may have gotten back to power today as a candidate of the center-right in Italian politics, but his political imagery appears to have taken its inspiration from the Democrats in the United States, namely, Barack Obama.

But the candidate Mr. Berlusconi defeated, Walter Veltroni, happens to know Mr. Obama and even wrote the introduction for the Italiani edition of one of his books. His campaign slogan? “Si Puo Fare!” - “Yes we can!”

The New York Times

Articolo dal Times (se annoia leggerlo tutto, interessante leggere le conclusioni sommarie alla fine):

Great Seducer Silvio Berlusconi woos Italy again but this time he’s got company

An exuberant Silvio Berlusconi tells The Times that he is Italy’s only hope of fighting the left

He had been up since 6am, but the only sign that Silvio Berlusconi showed of campaign strain as his private jet flew him home at 11pm was a voice made hoarse by hours of speeches in windy piazzas.

Sprawled in a luxurious seat, his left leg stretched out and a generously heeled shoe resting on the back of the chair in front, Italy’s richest man and front-runner to win elections being held today and tomorrow was in a characteristically confident mood.

Even the narrow victory forecast by the polls would represent an astounding comeback for the 71-year-old billionaire who was written off by his centre-right allies after he lost the last election two years ago.

They evidently underestimated the staying power of the first Italian prime minister since the second world war to have served a full five-year term. A pace-maker and an impressive hair transplant have helped to keep him going.

In an interview last week with The Sunday Times, the only foreign newspaper allowed onto his jet during the campaign, the former cruise-ship crooner, who is running for a third term as prime minister, said with a broad smile: “It’s the same everywhere I go – people treat me like a rock star. It’s obvious they see me as the only hope of fighting the left, which is dominated by communist ideology.”

Earlier that evening, a crowd in the Adriatic coastal town of Pescara had cheered and mobbed the “Great Seducer”, as he is known, at a rally that started and finished with dozens of renditions of his campaign anthem, with the refrain, “Thank God for Silvio”.

To stir enthusiasm among Italians who have become depressed by the poor state of their economy – a poll showed that 53% of Italians feel less well-off than ever – is a feat in itself.

Berlusconi’s serious, be-spectacled rival Walter Veltroni, 52, a former mayor of Rome, has also drawn crowds on a 6,000-mile tour – not by private jet but on an environmentally friendly bus – but his rallies have been far more low-key.

Veltroni, who took over as leader of the centre-left after the collapse of a coalition led by Romano Prodi, former president of the European commission, was nevertheless believed to be gaining on Berlusconi in the final days of the campaign. Some private polling put him as little as 3% behind, compared with between 5% and 9% behind in the last published polls two weeks ago.

It is hard to imagine Berlusconi the media mogul aboard an ordinary bus. His Airbus 319, originally designed for business-class travellers to New York, has only 48 seats compared with the usual 115, and bears the logo of his Fininvest family holding company on its tail and the Italian flag on its wingtips. A large Louis Vuitton suitcase stamped with his monogram in gold follows him aboard.

Dressed in a double-breasted navy-blue suit and an open-necked black shirt under black braces, the leader of the People of Freedom party – which replaced his Forza Italia (Go Italy) party last year – began our interview by offering to switch on the overhead light as we sat side by side. With most of his day’s make-up gone, the light revealed deep bags under his eyes but few wrinkles, thanks to the wonders of cosmetic surgery.

Asked what drove him to start his days before dawn and finish at 2am, he gave a throaty chuckle. “Habit,” he said. “I’ve always worked hard. I don’t find it tiring at all. Only my voice is suffering but that’s because I speak up to 10 hours a day.”

His aides must sometimes wish he would swallow some of his words. Sexist remarks which would spell ruin for a British or American politician have punctuated his campaign.

He asked his female supporters to bake jam tarts for candidates, joked about the “meno-pausal section” of the centre-left Democrats, and when accused of bringing showgirls from his television empire into politics, he quipped that he did “other things” with them. He even said that women on the right were more beautiful than those on the left.

Asked about his chauvinistic comments, he replied: “Look, I gave a speech to the women in my party. I said women were better than men at school, at university, at work and even in parliament. They make the best MPs because they’re always punctual and they study hard. That’s why four of my 12 cabinet ministers will be women.”

His remarks on women were only the latest in a long series of gaffes that once saw him compare Martin Schulz, the German MEP, with a “kapo” (guard) in a concentration camp and make the sign of the horns – with two outstretched fingers, denoting a cuckold – over the head of Josep Pique, the former Spanish foreign minister, at an EU summit.

Did he regret such gaffes? “They’re not gaffes. I’ve made no gaffes. The horns weren’t for Pique, they were for some boy scouts nearby I’d just played football with – they were doing the gesture themselves.” He could not help adding with a sardonic smile: “I know the minister’s wife and she’s a saintly woman.”

He prodded my hand and made the offending gesture again for good measure with a grin, waving his fingers inches from my face. “As for Shulz, he was worthy of a kapo,” he said. “I was quite right.’

Did his aides ever rein him in? Berlusconi looked surprised: “I’ve decided to be myself. I’ve become Italy’s biggest taxpayer and I have more than 50,000 people working for me.”

Promptly forgetting his “kapo” remark, he added: “I’ve always been nice to everyone. I’ve never insulted anyone. But 40% of Italians who are rooted in the left regard me with malevolence.”

Veltroni is his chief bogeyman – “a liar” who has not changed since his early days in the Communist party, Berlusconi says. “The British left gave up on communism 100 years ago when the Labour party was launched, but Veltroni’s Democratic party is just a new name for the old Communist party. It’s the same old nomenklatura. Veltroni means more state, more taxes and more immigrants, so more crime,” he said.

[Read more]

Io sono qui:

mah, insomma.

Vittime del populismo.

Si vive la politica come si va allo stadio, schieramenti serrati. Dici una cosa un po’ di destra sei uno stronzo fascista, dici una cosa vagamente di sinistra sei un comunista di merda.

immagine da www.silviodanaio.it 

Ieri sera, Daniela Santanchè e Flavia D’Angeli se ne dicono, urlano, nessun rispetto, nessun tempo preso in considerazione, CAOS.

Vespa in un momento di calma, rivolgendosi ai telespettatori: “Voglio solo dire che le candidate premier donne sono solo due, tranquilli”

E rieccomi dopo essere stato a parigi, nel paese di

e

essermi ingozzato di

e

e

mentre in Italia accadeva tutto ciò:

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Adoro la città, non mi piace la campagna. Fuori da New York ci sono solo due città al mondo dove mi sento a casa: una è Venezia, l’altra è Parigi. Sono venuto a Venezia per la prima volta a cinquant’anni e prima di arrivare, mentre stavo sull’aereo, ero preso dalle angosce: non mi piaceva molto l’idea di dovere andare in giro con una gondola oppure su una barca. Quando, però, mi sono trovato per la prima volta a solcare la laguna, il tempo melanconico, le emozioni del paesaggio, la gioia irrazionale che mi derivava dall’esserci me l’hanno fatta amare. So che è pazzesco, ma per qualche motivo che non so spiegare New York, Parigi e Venezia hanno per me un denominatore comune che me le fa sentire molto vicine. Io ho girato tutto il mondo e tutta l’Europa. Queste tre città, nel mio cuore, non hanno uguali (Woody Allen)
Mi manca ancora New York (nda)