ITALY: With the party flags waving wildly and with the party faithful cheerfully chanting, "There's only one Silvio Berlusconi", the Italian prime minister last night wound up his formal election campaign with a final rally in Rome.
Just three days away from a general election he is expected to lose, Mr Berlusconi remained true to his ever-optimistic nature, telling his ecstatic Forza Italia party followers: "We're in the lead, we have overtaken the left." Standing in front of the customary Microsoft-style, blue sky and passing cloud backdrop, Mr Berlusconi got, as they say in these parts, a lot of stones out of his shoes. Magistrates, banks, newspapers and all the other social forces which, he claims, pay tribute to the occult powers of his centre-left rivals, came in for a thorough blasting.
Before he got stuck into his enemies, however, the prime minister opted to explain the context of his now infamous "bollocks" remark, a term he used on Tuesday ostensibly to describe centre-left voters. People on the left "have called me a fool, a delinquent, an assassin and a Mafioso, but I did not respond".
The prime minister went on to say that his remark was not aimed at the entire centre-left electorate but rather at the delegates of Confcommercio, the retailers' association he was addressing when he made the comment. People like that, he said, people who have worked hard to create their own business and their own wealth, would be going against their own interests to vote for the centre-left.
The centre-left's main aim in politics "is to redistribute wealth" and to increase taxation, while they see profit as sinful. His centre-right government of the last five years has done more for the poor than the previous centre-left governments.
"Does anyone remember anything good about the last Prodi government?", asked the prime minister in reference to his centre-left rival, former European Commission president Romano Prodi.
A Maureen Potter pantomime audience could not have been more in unison in its hissing, spiteful tones as it shouted back up, "Nooooo. . ."
"No, indeed, all you remember is how he imposed a special euro tax on you," replied the prime minister.
Mr Berlusconi had some good news both for Italians and international economists. Italy is not in decline. The alleged Italian decline is "a theory invented by the left" with which they hope to gain power. Sorry, Silvio, the OECD, the EU, the Bank of Italy and others must all have got their figures wrong when claiming that the Italian economy has been at zero growth rate for the last 18 months or so.
In a fairly obvious attempt to win over the estimated 15 per cent of voters who may still be undecided, Mr Berlusconi offered reassuring words for young people, pensioners and Catholics alike. As the flags waved ever more enthusiastically, getting in the way of all those "fans" trying to record the occasion on their mobile phones, the prime minister, as always, saved the best for last.
Taking a leaf out of his concluding speech during Monday night's TV debate with Mr Prodi, he promised Italians that he will keep tax on savings and government bonds at 12.5 per cent, as opposed to the 23 per cent proposed by the left, and, above all, he intends to abolish ICI, the Italian rates tax. "This last promise," explained the lady beside me, "will swing it for us, we'll win." Over to the ballot box.