Italy election could end with Silvio Berlusconi playing kingmaker

ROME — Over an evening glass of wine, regulars at the Da Luca delicatessen on Rome’s fashionable Via Urbana are arguing about who will run Europe’s fourth-largest economy after parliamentary elections on Sunday.

There is little agreement except that, even by Italian standards, this campaign has been wild and unpredictable.

Led by an untested millennial, the dissonant anti-establishment Five Star Movement is ahead in the polls.

With the ruling center-left in disarray and the far-right capitalizing on the influx of refugees, a kingmaker potentially looms. Silvio Berlusconi, the perma-tanned 81-year-old billionaire who many Italians thought they’d seen the last of after a series of scandals, is back.

“He’s a genius. I hate him, but he’s a genius,” said Massimiliano Baccanico, 46, a tech worker and an urban cycling advocate. “I would never vote for him, but Berlusconi is still popular with a lot of Italians.”

Berlusconi’s center-right coalition has gained ground, boosted perhaps by the campaign presence of Benito Mussolini’s glamorous granddaughter Alessandra and a surge in support for the far-right populist party La Lega, which denounces immigration and the European Union and has ties to Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party. And while Berlusconi is banned from holding office due to a tax-fraud conviction, he has been prominent on the campaign trail and is leader of the Forza Italia party.



Source: nbcnews

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