ITALIAN PRIME minister Silvio Berlusconi, like everyone else, has been doing his Christmas shopping.
The difference is, of course, that when you also happen to be a media tycoon worth an estimated €7 billion, your budget tends to stretch beyond the “kris kindle” range so popular in these times of economic constraint.
Thus it was that last week, fresh from yet another great survival act in parliament, the 74-year-old prime minister did one of those things that he does best.
Mr Berlusconi’s generosity with his Christmas presents is the stuff of modern Italian legend and he certainly lived up to his reputation by gifting all 37 female parliamentarians from his People Of Freedom party (PDL) with a tricoloured ring, approximating the Italian tricolor and reportedly worth €1,400 each.
At €51,800, the prime minister doubtless would argue that it is money well spent.
At a moment when his lower house parliamentary majority has shrunk from 60 to just three last Tuesday, he needs to keep all his ship’s crew happy.
Indeed as we prepare for an uncertain new year, there are those who argue that Mr Berlusconi will use his undoubted skills of persuasion, not to say his largesse, to increase his razor-thin majority.
Speaking by telephone to a PDL party gathering in Florence on Saturday, however, the prime minister adopted a typically optimistic tone, saying: “Rest assured that we will continue to govern.
“Even if we did not manage to do that, then we’ll have an early election which we will win by the length of the street.”
In the immediate future, there is the prospect of yet another student protest on Wednesday of this week.
Given the violence seen at last Tuesday’s student protest, further unrest and a consequent further negative impact on Mr Berlusconi’s administration cannot be excluded.
On top of all that, as Mr Berlusconi tries hard (but so far unsuccessfully) to woo uncertain deputies from both the rebel Future and Liberty (FLI) party and from Pierferdinando Casini’s centrist UDC, his last remaining ally, namely Northern League leader Umberto Bossi, is getting distinctly uneasy.
Yesterday Mr Bossi suggested that perhaps the best thing to do at this point would be to call early elections so as to end the current moment of uncertainty and confusion.
Having lost one “historic” ally in the last six months, in the shape of speaker of the Lower House, Gianfrano Fini of the FLI party, Mr Berlusconi will be careful not to lose another one in Mr Bossi. Day by day, a March general election looks all the more probable.