Pier Silvio Berlusconi and the temptation of politics to inherit his father – Corriere.it

To navigate politics, Pier Silvio Berlusconi should leave the company. It’s not the first time he’s been at the crossroads. There was a moment when his father asked him to cross the Pillars of Hercules. But he refused. And now that the father is gone, he observes the unknown sea of ​​politics and is tempted to sail it. In the days following the parent’s funeral, the managing director of Mediaset amazed seasoned fishermen of the Palazzo, to whom he asked what is on the other side, why “I’d like it” and “we’ll have to think about it”: “See you ? I want to talk to you about it.”

The idea of ​​following Pier Silvio has the same route as the Cavaliere
. Indeed, it would have: it is a suggestion that holds together the desire to emulate, the thrill of novelty, the ambition of power. Signs of this were seen in the emotional speech you gave in front of Mediaset employees immediately after the funeral of the leader of Forza Italiaas he reported Free. And in the passage of the letter sent to Republic, in which he claimed to be “my father’s son”. As if she owed him for that denial.

It was the spring of 2014, the European elections were approaching, and Silvio Berlusconi was forced to stay on the sidelines, inhibited from challenging by the sentence of the Mediaset trial. He was looking for a replacement for his party and as usual turned to the polls for advice. So he had his children tested. Pier Silvio was the first on the list, by a hair’s breadth ahead of Marina, with a personal confidence index that fluctuated between 25 and 30% and an ability to increase the (few) Azzurri votes by 3%. Standing next to him and placing a hand on his shoulder, the Knight imagined he could reverse the trend in the polls. However, the son did not feel like it and Matteo Renzi also raided the Azzurri’s consensus, winning 40% of the votes.

Nine years later, Pier Silvio finds himself on the same beach, but without the parent anymore. There is no doubt that the surname could make navigation easier but it could also turn into a burden, due to the inevitable comparison to which it would be subjected. The polls that have recently been commissioned with the name of him highlight the difficulties facing Forza Italia today and public opinion. “There is no political heir to Silvio Berlusconi,” a number wizard like Alessandra Ghisleri ruled on TV the other day.

There is a temptation to challenge the waves of politics. Indeed, there would be. Because there is the awareness that to face them he would have to build a solid boat; that is, have a staff; surround yourself with political, economic and diplomatic advisers; relate to those worlds of reference that guarantee reservoirs of votes; invest time, energy and resources. An ambitious and complex mission for those unfamiliar with the currents of the Palazzo and should abandon the routes followed so far. Of course, Pier Silvio’s conversations are authentic, that «I would like to» with which he intrigued his interlocutors. And it is the trigger of a debate that recalls the communication strategy adopted by his father in the autumn of 1993, when rumors began to chase each other about his taking the field. It was (also) in this way that the Knight got publicity.

If this were the case, however, the son would have to leave Mediaset, changing the balance in the family structure. Here are the rocks that Pier Silvio sees emerge before his temptation. Stripping the front of a company that is internationalizing and is engaged in a delicate transition phase would be risky. He could open a door to those who aspire to conquer Berlusconi’s empire: interested spectators who meet and talk about it even during dinners at restaurants. And then there will be a reason if at the moment in the Mediaset headquarters you don’t see those troop movements which have always been a prelude to important initiatives.

On the other hand, Pier Silvio’s destination would not even be clear: would he only propose to lead the party to which the family has promised to “stay close”, or would he bet on Palazzo Chigi? And what would become of the entente cordial with Giorgia Meloni at that point? It would be another thing to imagine oneself as a sort of “number one card” of Forza Italia: picking up on the political legacy of the Knight, he could thus influence strategic choices. Also because the CEO of Mediaset knows that if he decides to go beyond the Pillars of Hercules he will never be able to go back.

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