so Berlusconi fascinated the people. In that hospital room we recognized ourselves as human»- Corriere.it

For the leader who in 2013 challenged “the jaguar” in the general elections, the funeral of Silvio Berlusconi will be “like those of a ruler”. Because the founder of Forza Italia he had a great giftwhich Pier Luigi Bersani recognizes him and which allowed him to conquer the Italians: «Empathy».

Berlusconi took the field almost 30 years ago “to save the country from the Communists”. What was the first thought that crossed her mind when he learned of his death?

«I remembered a conference I had organized years ago, in which a French demographer told me “scientifically I cannot say that immortality does not exist, but it has a very low degree of probability”. If there had been a competition among the people most attached to life, I believe that Berlusconi would have had no rivals. We are talking about a non-reproducible personality, whose main trait was inexhaustible vitalism».

What is your strongest memory of him?

“That half hour face to face at the San Raffaele.”

It was December 13, 2009, the then prime minister had been hit in the face by a statuette and she, his main opponent, held his hand for half an hour.

“Actually, it was he who held my hand. We recognized each other as a trait of humanity, even if I thought his was more controversial. Inside that vitalism there was a capacity that has always struck me. He was someone who made his business, but transmitting a generosity that fascinated. I have had many proofs of this by meeting even the humblest people».

What was the key to winning over the electorate that once voted left?

“Along with the interests that he certainly represented, there is an element of mystery, which is called empathy and which greatly affects the relationship with the popular strata”.

Do you share the social controversies on national mourning?

“In short, I don’t think we can make an issue out of it. Everyone holds his opinion, but it is indisputable that he was an important person in the history of the Republic on a historical and political level. I think we can say that he, after the swampy senility of the first Republic and of tangentopoli, gave the imprinting of an element that still exists in part for about twenty years. Which? The personalization of politics, which in order to win becomes a critique of politics and then anti-politics and this is a made in Italy which derives from Berlusconi. It was meant to be the solution to a problem, it has become a problem».

Will your political legacy go to Giorgia Meloni?

“Berlusconi being an imaginary liberal, his 20-year leadership of the centre-right leaves no liberal legacy, it leaves a right-right. In calling taxes and bureaucracy a system of counterweights and guarantees, there is nothing liberal about it. Unfortunately it is the drama of this country ».

So is the political legacy bad?

«It is, in the sense that Berlusconi does not leave us a properly liberal culture. The great conservative party has not been created and the Italian drama of a monopolist who played the liberal remains».

Many trials and only one conviction for tax fraud. Was he right to rail against the “red robes”?

“No, I think he wasn’t right. The concept of discipline and honor in public functions was gradually replaced by the concepts of success and consensus. There was the idea that being a liberal meant breaking rules, which put him on the threshold of problems that could even reach the gates of justice. Net of excesses that there may have been, he sometimes got away with an adjustment of the legislation ».

Did you negatively influence a generation with your TVs, or did you write the history of Italian society?

«He did his part by awakening instincts, including cultural ones, that rested in the depths of Italian conscience and history. That of the TV is a river that had a muddy course, but it would be unfair to say that it has not also brought some news ».

For Putin he was “a true friend, a dear person”.

“When you want to be concave and convex in life, as he said, you try to be friends with everyone and in the end you become related even to disreputable people”.

In the days of “elegant dinners” you were very critical…
«Retrenching behind the cliché that everyone does what they want even while carrying out public functions has been a wound, a vulnus, in the conscience of many women and men. Beyond the judicial aspects, some behaviors have gone around the world and it is incredible that someone thinks that they have done Italy good”.

So you don’t share Renzi’s praise?

«Now the issue of succession opens up, but in a political mechanism such as the one brought about by Berlusconi, succession can only be dynastic. Now those who want to divide the remains will arrive and this is another sadness, which adds to the sadness of the farewell».

The Political Diary newsletter

If you want to stay updated on political news, subscribe to the newsletter “Political Diary”. It is dedicated to Corriere della Sera subscribers and arrives twice a week at 12. Just click here.