Casini and Berlusconi’s last words: “What am I left to do in this world”
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ROME. He has many memories, some still make him burst out laughing today, but the last one he tells with emotion. After the re-election of Mattarella, grateful for having found in Berlusconi one of the supporters of his candidacy for the Quirinale, Pierferdinando Casini went to see him in Arcore. «It was January, it was cold, we talked about many things and after breakfast he showed me around in the garden. He leaned on me … I understood that he was not steady on his legs. I asked him if he was cold and he said to me: “You know Pier, sometimes I wonder what I’m still left to do in this world”. Taken aback, I immediately reply: “What are you saying Silvio, don’t joke! Millions of Italians love you, you have to fight”. Of course, it is paradoxical that I told him that I hadn’t shared so many political steps but over the years the human aspect had taken over”.
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Hot, how are you experiencing this disappearance?
“Well, on the one hand there is regret for his passing, on the other it is like when you think that a loved one is suffering: I believe that this story of the disease has put an end to suffering that is difficult for a man like him to bear , dynamic, with a thousand ideas, forced to stay in bed or in an armchair».
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And when did he first speak to us?
«It was the 1980s, when I followed television for Forlani, secretary of the DC: I was in charge together with Enzo Carra and Luciano Rasi of the sector and we had carried out monitoring from which it emerged that all of Berlusconi’s TVs brazenly favored the socialists. Forlani, who didn’t want to get his hands dirty with these things, told us to go and complain to him».
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How did he welcome you?
«I remember that we had a meeting with Berlusconi, Confalonieri and Letta in the house in via dell’Anima. More than a meeting there was a clash … he told us that he had some aunts who were nuns and I told him, “that’s fine, but these nuns must appear on video, otherwise we don’t care”. It was a pretty strong fight, it was I who went ahead. But then from there he developed a feeling of sympathy that never failed».
Even when he took the field in 1993?
«I’ll tell you an episode: before going into the field, it was an autumn day, I went to see him in Arcore. He tells me about his plan to form an alliance in the south with Fini’s MSI and in the north with Bossi and the Lega. And I tell him: Silvio, you don’t understand anything about politics, it’s impossible to form an alliance with the right and the League, which are like cats and dogs».
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And he?
“I looked at the gardener pulling up the leaves and he answered me like this: ‘You just said the same sentence that the president of Sampdoria, Mantovani, told me when I announced to him that I would take Milan and win the Champions Cup. Let’s see how it goes this time.”
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But then there was the breakup in 2008. What did you say there?
«Our values are not for sale, you have to learn that in Italy you don’t buy everything, I told him things like that. But then I always maintained a good relationship. Unlike Fini…».
They didn’t get along with Fini, even if he was the one who cleared it in 1992, right?
“Yes, they never got on with Fini, I’ve never quite understood why, relations with him have always been harsh, while with me all in all, except in those months of 2008, the relationship has always been good”.
Biggest laugh you remember?
«Well, there are so many, some are not repeatable. I tell you something serious and a joke. When my father died he found the right words, “I’ve been there too Pier, until your father dies you will never grow up. And today you have become one”. I still remember them because he showed his great humanity. He liked to please everyone, not just the powerful”.
And the light episode?
«One evening I invite him to my house for dinner: I had a maid and at one point he goes to the kitchen to talk to her, an elderly lady, who talks to him about her son who was not well. Well, twenty days later she comes back to dinner with me and goes to the lady to ask how her son is. Quite an unusual thing, but not for him.”
But he was also a great smartass, not just a good guy or not?
«Well, I remember that once he complained to me about the fact that one of Forza Italia, I won’t say the name, wanted to be a minister and he didn’t consider him suitable. He was a character who is no longer politically active today. The first time I didn’t say anything, the second time he told me again and the third time I point out: “Silvio, he may want to be a minister but you promised him…”. And he promptly answered me: “Look, even you young people get old and don’t remember things well…”. It was like that.”
What do you leave to Italian politics?
“For better or for worse, he was a great innovator. The legacy of personal parties is not a good thing. But he unified right and left. And also on the left, many times, instead of building coalitions capable of governing, alliances have been created capable only of defeating him. And this has delayed the examination of what will mature for the same components of the centre-left. The same goes for the right, where political contradictions have always been overcome in the name of Berlusconi”.
But she too once in 2009, right in La Stampa, said she would make an alliance with the devil, who at the time was Antonio Di Pietro, in order to beat the drift that the center-right had taken.
«Yes, but then I went alone and I didn’t make this alliance. When I separated from Berlusconi I went alone. The fact that he was a genius is demonstrated by the fact that when he broke up with me in 2008, Silvio understood that the votes I thought I was stealing from him were actually taking away from Veltroni. In that dynamic he went like this and I did him a favor ».
Now his inheritance passes to Meloni or Salvini?
“Political legacies do not exist, there are those who take them, the problem has already been solved by incorporation in the September 2022 elections. I don’t know what will happen to Forza Italia, it doesn’t seem to me a relevant problem”.
But could Renzi take the baton for a project at the centre?
“I don’t know and in any case I don’t care and I wouldn’t be a part of it.”
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