Italy: Italy's political forces were bitterly divided yesterday in the wake of a typically theatrical and highly controversial address by prime minister Silvio Berlusconi to Confindustria, Italy's influential employers' association.
Not for the first time, Mr Berlusconi turned the heat up on an already hot election campaign last weekend when making an unexpected, last-minute appearance at a Confindustria conference in Vicenza, northern Italy.
He had originally cancelled his scheduled appearance, saying that he had a bad back problem. At the last minute, however, Mr Berlusconi changed his mind and, accompanied by about 250 supporters, presented himself at the conference, saying: "I really did not want to miss out on a meeting with you people who, like me, are the very motor of Italy".
Although Mr Berlusconi had been invited to a question-and-answer session of the sort attended by centre-left leader Romano Prodi on Friday, he soon abandoned the formalities and launched himself into an impassioned, hustings speech.
Telling the industrialists that they had a "duty" to be optimistic, he attacked all "the harbingers of gloom and doom" about the Italian economy, in particular newspapers such as Corriere Della Sera, La Repubblica, La Stampa, Il Messaggero and Il Sole 24 Ore. "Where is the crisis? It's been created by the centre-left and their newspapers who hope to use it to get into power."
To the accompaniment of vigorous support from his own supporters, but to the obvious discomfort of senior figures in Confindustria, the prime minister then further upped the volume, as he walked up and down, shouting into a hand-held microphone.
His government, he argued, had given Italy stability for the last five years during which time the country had "gained respect, admiration and credibility all over the world".
Listing a series of statistics to illustrate how Italians are better off now than five years ago, Mr Berlusconi then launched a bitter attack on leather goods industrialist Diego Della Valle, who had recently criticised him. "If an industrialist has lost his head and opts to support the left, he must have a lot of skeletons in his cupboard and many things to hide."
Mr Berlusconi's address was yesterday criticised by Andrea Pininfarina, vice-president of Confindustria, who told the daily La Repubblica: "Berlusconi basically said to us that anyone who doesn't see things the way he does has either lost his mind or has something to hide.
"This attitude to political debate, on the part of a party leader, seems to me anti-democratic and offensive."
Former European commission president Romano Prodi, the centre-left candidate for prime minister, also stigmatised his rival's behaviour, saying: "I went to Vicenza and answered all the questions put to me. That which I saw on TV next day [from Mr Berlusconi] belongs to another world, to another concept of democracy."
Perhaps the most telling quip of the day came from seven-times prime minister Giulio Andreotti who said: "Perhaps they should dope test the party leaders in the final weeks of the campaign."