2015年经济学人 意大利政治 社工贝卢斯科尼（在线收听）

Italian politics

Silvio Berlusconi, social worker

Embarrassments pile up but the former prime minister still has political clout

NOT good: but far from the worst outcome. On April 15th a Milan court ruled that Silvio Berlusconi should serve his sentence for tax fraud by helping in an old people's home in Milan.

But the former prime minister will be free to go to Rome from Tuesday to Thursday.

In practice, the 77-year-old is unlikely to spend more than half a day a week pretending to help grannies, and then only for nine months.

As often happens in Italy, a daunting punishment has been whittled down to a mild reproof.

Mr Berlusconi's four-year sentence was cut to one year because of an amnesty law from a centre-left government in 2006.

He could not be jailed thanks to another law passed by one of his governments that bans the imprisonment of most over-70s.

Since the court had ruled out house arrest, there is nothing to stop him leading his Forza Italia! party into next month's European elections.

The message that Mr Berlusconi was not just any criminal, but the leader of Italy's main conservative party,

was neatly conveyed to the judges when he spent some hours with the prime minister,

Matteo Renzi, discussing a constitutional reform that requires his party's parliamentary support.

Despite this clout, three recent events have left the media tycoon and his party beleaguered.

On April 10th a judge sequestered 49m ($68m) of assets said to belong to Roberto Formigoni,

who was for 18 years governor of Lombardy and for all but three a leading member of Mr Berlusconi's party.

Mr Formigoni, who has joined Angelino Alfano's breakaway New Centre Right (NCD) party,

is to go on trial next month charged with corruption and conspiracy. He denies wrongdoing.

Then on April 12th police in Lebanon arrested Marcello Dell'Utri, the man who created Forza Italia!

from nothing in the early 1990s, giving Mr Berlusconi the vehicle he needed for his political career.

Mr Dell'Utri, a Sicilian, remained close, despite controversy over his alleged links to Cosa Nostra.

He disappeared shortly before the supreme court could rule on his seven-year jail sentence for aiding and abetting mobsters.

Lower-court judges ruled that his collaboration with the Mafia ceased before he founded Forza Italia!

But his legal problems and fugitive status are embarrassing for the party and its leader.

Lastly, on April 13th, Mr Berlusconi's long-standing spokesman, Paolo Bonaiuti, confirmed he was leaving Forza Italia!,

but not the centre-right—a hint that he will join the NCD.

His decision to quit was evidence of tensions that have multiplied within Forza Italia!

as the party has drifted without a clear direction in recent months.

The possibility that Mr Berlusconi might have been under house arrest drew renewed attention to his lack of a successor.

Mr Alfano founded the NCD after Mr Berlusconi had handed him the leadership, only to snatch it back again.

But whether Mr Alfano can build a credible alternative to Forza Italia! remains to be seen;

five months after its foundation, the NCD averages less than 5% in the polls.

Forza Italia!'s share has slumped from 29% at last year's election to 21%,

below Beppe Grillo's maverick Five Star Movement (M5S).

Unless Mr Berlusconi can find a way to revive his party's fortunes,

it is possible that the next confrontation in Italian politics will not be between right and left,

but between Mr Renzi's Democratic Party and an M5S that aspires to replace not just all the mainstream parties but parliamentary democracy itself.