Italians withhold judgment on Berlusconi

The static results of Italy's local elections may indicate voters want to give the government more time to deliver - or perhaps they really just want to be left alone, writes Rory Carroll.

For voters who treat politics as spectacle Italy has had quite a year. Silvio Berlusconi opened the show with a general election triumph in May 2000, a spectacular comeback for a man once apparently destined for jail, and one drama has followed another.

Facing a raft of corruption charges, the prime minister sparked uproar by passing laws which appeared designed to get him off the hook and followed up by threatening to clip the power of magistrates he said were leftwing agitators.

Confronted by powerful trade unions who helped destroy his first government in 1994, he resolved to loosen labour laws to make it easier to fire workers, triggering massive demonstrations and the country's first full-day general strike in 20 years.

Mr Berlusconi unleashed an international storm by declaring the west's superiority over Islam just when Washington was trying to enlist Muslim states in its war on terrorism.

There was the G8 summit in Genoa when violent anarchists turned anti-globalisation protests into urban warfare and the police turned peaceful demonstrators into bloodied pulps and a rioter into a corpse.

With a supporting cast of ministers such as Umberto Bossi, the gravel-voiced xenophobe, and Gianfranco Fini, the smooth ex-fascist, the ruling coalition generated fresh plot twists - threats to fire leftwing journalists from state television, unleashing the navy against human traffickers, legalising brothels - which delighted or outraged but never bored.

Every headline chronicled a new row while in parliament and on chat shows politicians shouted themselves hoarse.

In local elections earlier this week voters were able to deliver a verdict of the past 12 months. Almost 12 million people, a quarter of the electorate, were eligible to vote in elections for mayors and councils in 967 locales.

The result? A draw. Each side claimed victory but, overall, neither side won or lost. In key battlegrounds the centre-right captured Reggio Calabria, on the peninsula's toe, and held on to Parma, in the centre, while the opposition kept Genoa and forced a runoff for Verona.

So no repeat landslide for the ruling coalition but no serious erosion in support. No comeback for the opposition but a halt to its plunge in popularity.

"All remains almost as it was before," said the Turin daily, La Stampa. "Whoever wants to interpret the vote ... from a political point of view should come to the conclusion that Italians withheld judgment on Berlusconi's government: it did not fail nor pass the test but remains in charge as before, awaiting new events."

To outsiders that is a puzzle. Why so cagey? Have voters not had a feast of events on which to deliver judgement? Have the dramas not merited a resounding reaction, positive or negative, to the government?

One explanation might be that voters fell asleep during the show. Italian newspapers and television networks tend to package political news for insiders and seldom make it accessible to ordinary people.

A likelier explanation is La Stampa's: Italians have indeed paid attention and concluded it is too soon to judge. They know that what to outsiders may seem a year of near revolution has been one long stretch of stasis.

Beyond the sound and fury of political news all is quiet on the key issues: tax cuts, pensions and labour law reform, infrastructure projects, security. A slowing economy and fear of social unrest has stalled the government's ambitions. The next 12 months will show whether it has the mettle to implement significant and in some cases painful reforms.

Mr Berlusconi, who doubles up as foreign minister, has scored real successes in foreign policy. Rome is no longer a doormat in Brussels, it stands up for its interests. It is playing a constructive role in the Middle East.

Yesterday Mr Berlusconi hosted a historic Nato-Russia summit outside Rome, a tribute to his focus and determination in prodding Moscow and Washington into a deal.

But it is moot how much that impresses Italians. The media tycoon was elected on a platform of shaking up the economy and cracking down on crime and immigration.

Despite rhetoric of a Copernican revolution the government has merely tinkered. In the overheated political climate his media empire hypes marginal changes as breakthroughs and the press he does not own laments them as catastrophes, disguising a more mundane truth. Not very much is happening.

The labour law change which triggered the general strike, for example, is still a proposal which may be diluted or kicked into touch. The vaunted plans to build roads and bridges, including one to Sicily, have yet to materialise.

There is no movement on privatisations or pension reform and an anti-immigration bill has yet to be enacted. The local election results suggest voters, habituated to decades of cautious government, seem inclined to give Mr Berlusconi more time to deliver his promises.

There is an alternative, more cynical explanation for such patience. Voters do not really want things to change. They are content. More than anything, they want to be left alone. On that score Mr Berlusconi is doing just fine.