Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi lashed out at the press and the center-left opposition on Saturday, saying they were trying to deceive people into believing their country was in decline.
In a surprise appearance at the end of a conference held by Confindustria, Italy’s influential employers association, Berlusconi quickly launched into a tirade, accusing his opponents of fabricating a crisis.
“Where is the crisis? It is the left and their newspapers that are inventing a crisis that does not exist in order to get to power,” he told the conference’s thousands of attendees, who responded with a mix of loud cheering but also whistles.
Berlusconi, who on Friday said had cancelled his planned appearance due to a back problem, changed his mind and was greeted enthusiastically when he limped into the conference hall after arriving at the venue by helicopter.
“I told the doctors, inject me with something, do what you have to but get me on my feet,” he told Italy’s business elite. “I couldn’t miss this appointment with those who, like me, are entrepreneurs, the engine of Italy.”
Berlusconi is lagging center-left leader Romano Prodi by around 4 points according to most polls, with less than a month to go to the April 9-10 election.
Prodi attended the two-day forum on Friday, receiving a warm but more sober reception as he set out his program, promising to cut labor taxes by five percentage points in his first year in office.
After a light-hearted start, Berlusconi quickly changed tone as he forgot his back pain and leapt out of his chair to hit back at his critics in probably the most dramatic moments of the election campaign so far.
‘Be positive, be optimistic’
He dismissed calls from the mediator of the event to respect the agreed question and answer format and strode to the front of the stage to urge business leaders to ignore the “pessimism” of the media and the opposition.
“Be positive! Be optimistic! Don’t believe the newspapers that talk of decline! Entrepreneurs have a duty to be optimistic,” he cried, microphone in hand.
He personally attacked a well-known business leader in the audience who is known to support the opposition.
“If there’s a businessman who supports the left and has not lost his head it means he has a lot of skeletons in the cupboard and has plenty of things to ask forgiveness for,” he cried.
Berlusconi left as quickly as he arrived amid whistles and chants of “Silvio, Silvio,” bringing the conference to a riotous and impromptu conclusion.
The prime minister has had a strained relationship with Confindustria in recent years after it strongly backed him when he stormed to power in 2001.
The association’s chairman, Luca di Montezemolo, has criticized his government for failing to foster competition and recently called the election campaign “the worst in our history ... a carnival of populism”.
Zero growth
While many of Confindustria’s rank-and-file cheered Berlusconi on Saturday, its top echelons made little attempt to hide their disapproval of his performance. Some even suggested to reporters he had brought his own cheer leaders to the event.
“I respect the institution of the prime minister too much to make any comment,” Montezemolo said.
In a speech to the conference earlier in the day, Montezemolo stayed clear of politics, saying his association was ready to work with the future government to revive the economy, regardless of its political stripes.
Italy posted zero growth in 2005 for the second time in three years and its once rampant exports have been steadily losing market share since the mid 1990s.
Confindustria Vice President Andrea Pininfarina, who on Friday had warned Italy could lose its place among the Group of Eight industrial powers due to its economic decline, said Berlusconi’s words were out of place.
“Pointing out the situation we are in is not pessimism, it is realism, out country is sliding backwards,” he said, adding that Berlusconi appeared to be in “a state of confusion, perhaps due to the fatigue of the election campaign.”
