Could a teenage girl topple Berlusconi?

[IndianaGreen]

Source: The Independent (UK)

Could a teenage girl topple Berlusconi?

She calls him 'daddy'. He bought her a £6,000 necklace for her 18th. Silvio Berlusconi's relationship with Noemi Letizia has already seen his wife file for divorce. Now, could it cost him his grip on power?

By Peter Popham

Wednesday, 27 May 2009


18-year-old Noemi Letizia poses with a portrait of
Silvio Berlusconi. The Italian Prime Minister bought
her a necklace worth £5,700 for her 18th birthday

Italians are always scornful about the obsession of the "Anglo-Saxon" media with the private lives of the rich and famous, but for the past month the Italian newspapers have been preoccupied with one subject and one subject only: the relationship between Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and a young woman from Naples called Noemi Letizia.


Mr Berlusconi has been caught out telling numerous lies about the relationship and refuses to explain them. And with important elections pending, his popularity, at an all-time high only six weeks ago, may be eroding.

The media cannot be accused of muck-raking on the issue because it was Mr Berlusconi himself who drew attention to the relationship in Tuesday when he took advantage of a trip to Naples to drop in on Noemi's 18th birthday party. There he posed for photographs and presented the pretty young blonde with a gold and diamond pendant worth €6,500 (£5,700). This unremarkable event was immortalised in a short news story the next day in La Repubblica.

And there it would have ended, except that within four days it provided Mr Berlusconi's second wife, Veronica, with the casus belli for a divorce. Her husband, she said in a press release, was "consorting with minors"; he was "not well", she was worried about him, but in the meantime, after nearly 30 years together, she was in no doubt that the marriage was over.

Suddenly that innocuous-seeming social event assumed mysterious and sinister overtones. Noemi, it was learned, called Mr Berlusconi "papi", Italian for "daddy". He seemed on remarkably familiar terms with the girl. Pushed into a corner by Veronica, who opens her mouth about once every two years but with devastating effect, Berlusconi went on Porta-a-Porta, a late-night political chat show hosted by his most unctuous TV courtier and explained that Noemi's father Elio Letizia was an old political contact from his days when he was connected to Bettino Craxi and the Socialist party: Berlusconi needed to see him on urgent European election business. But soon afterwards Bobo Craxi, son of the late Bettino, popped up and said he had never heard of Noemi's father. Likewise Mr Berlusconi's unlikely claim about "election business" failed to pan out, and some weeks later was denied by Letizia himself.

Read more: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/could-a-teenage-girl-topple-berlusconi-1691232.html

[New Dawn]

1. One can only hope.

[babylonsister]

2. No. That was the straw. nt

[bleever]

3. Silvio:

Silver and gold
Won't buy back the love
Of a heart grown cold.


Or so I've heard.

[Golden Raisin]

4. Berlusconi is a cafone. Scemo.

[nomorenomore08]

5. I had the guy pegged all wrong. Thought his ideal woman was more like Margaret Thatcher.

:hide:

[rpannier]

6. I'd like to think this will sink him

But I'll believe it when I see it

[LeftOfSelf-Centered]

7. I highly doubt it....

The situation here is pretty damn grim: he has a stranglehold on much of the media, and those who he can't control are maligned as just wanting to score political points, and are therefore ignored by his followers.

This is a cult of personality at its worst. His electorate follows him blindly and uncritically, and I doubt this story in the end will make enough of a dent to give him any real trouble. Add to that a "left-wing" (they're so moderate that the term barely applies) party that is completely ineffective and without clear message and I think that we're in for a long four years (until the next elections)...

[Vidar]

8. Sorry to hear this. I loved Italy when I was there.

[LeftOfSelf-Centered]

9. I generally like living here...

I live in Tuscany, which is one of the (few remaining) left-wing strongholds in Italy. The weather's nice and I'm close to the beach, I live in a place where other people vacation. But it's becoming increasingly difficult. Salaries are brutally low, job security is scarce and unemployment benefits inexistent for many people. Chances are I'll be emigrating (again) before long...

And it's obvious that this government isn't going to do anything to improve this situation. Actually I think it's highly likely to get worse. It's come to the point that I have no idea who to vote for at the European Parliamentary elections in June. Obviously anyone right-wing is out of the question, but the major left-wing party, the Partito Democratico (Democratic Party), has run so far to the center in the past year and a half that I am very reluctant to reward that behavior.