Italy’s former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is still banking on a check of spoiled ballots from last month’s super-tight elections to return him to power, according to a copy of a letter to world leaders reproduced in the media on Thursday.
”I hope to return soon to government after more than a million spoiled ballots are checked,” the conservative Berlusconi wrote in the letter, published in the weekly L’Espresso.
”As you probably know, because of Italy’s very particular electoral system and despite my personal success — Forza Italia is the leading Italian party — the coalition that I led wound up in the majority overall in the number of votes, but in the minority in terms of Parliamentary representation,” he wrote.
”As opposition leader, I represent 50,2% of the country,” said the flamboyant media tycoon.
The official count gave centre-left leader Romano Prodi an edge of just 25 000 votes of the 39-million votes cast in the April 9-10 polls, the closest in living memory.
Berlusconi, who has yet to congratulate Prodi, challenged the result with a variety of fraud allegations.
He reportedly hoped to persuade former president Carlo Azeglio Ciampi to sign a decree extending the normal review of contested ballots to include more than a million spoiled votes, but Ciampi is believed to have refused.
Now his last remaining hope is that the lower house Chamber of Deputies’ electoral committee will order a review of the spoiled ballots.
The letter reproduced on Thursday was dated May 16 — the eve of Prodi’s inauguration — and written on the letterhead of the prime minister’s office.
Berlusconi reportedly personalised the letter to each recipient, signing simply ”Silvio” in the version sent to Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero.
”I assure you that I will continue to follow with great interest your commitment to Spain and to Europe,” he wrote. ”I remind you that you have in Italy a friend that wishes you well.”
Italy’s top daily Corriere della Sera said similar letters went out to several other world leaders.
Berlusconi’s centre-right House of Freedoms coalition lost the elections in part because of changes to the electoral law that it pushed through just months before the elections, reinstating proportional representation. — AFP
