Berlusconi of the left?

Abstract

While news media report on the last wave of scandals involving the Italian prime minister, a simple truth is becoming painfully apparent, both in Italy and abroad. Silvio Berlusconi's success has not simply been down to his heavy level of control of Italian media, but also to the continuing lack of a credible and appealing Left alternative. Despite the gloomy state of the Italian Left there might finally be a leader who could challenge Berlusconi's hegemony by rivalling his communicative artfulness. We are talking about the volcanic governor of Apulia (the heel of the Italian boot) Nichi Vendola, that person who news media in Italy have already dubbed the “Berlusconi of the Left” because of his media-savvyness and televised charisma. Combining in the same persona the identities of communist, gay and christian the ear-ring wearing, poetry-enthusiast Nichi Vendola has been one of the very few success stories in the Italian Left in recent years and a very telling one. He has won political campaigns against all odds, countering the political establishment and the party apparatuses of the Left, and has cast himself as maverick fighting for a “better Italy” against the “worse Italy” the world knows all too well. Having recently founded a new party of the Sinistra, Ecologia e Liberta' (Left, Ecology and Freedom) he now hopes to run as the centre-left candidate in the next political elections. A contest where he might well win given that he currently enjoys a 48% approval ratings in the polls, against the 36% of beleaguered Silvio Berlusconi. Instrumental in Vendola's political success has been the adoption of innovative political communications, ranging from aggressive electoral posters, to dedicated Facebook and Youtube pages to attract young voters and memorable TV appearances. In the process Vendola has made a name for himself as one of those rare politicians in the contemporary Italian Left who are good at “getting the message across”, and at mastering that communicative craft which has made Berlusconi's fortune. Despite Berlusconi's and Vendola's huge difference in political ideology it is undeniable that they share much in terms of their approach to the electorate, practicing a politics which centres