Well, the general election ended today and with a spot of luck, Berlusconi should be finished.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4894584.stm

Good to see that clown finished... although I'm afraid the leftish coalition doesn't have any staying power. Back to having a new Italian government every 2-3 years?

Probably. Im not too big on Italian politics. I just now that Berlusconi, as you say, is a clown.

I think there is obivously a anti-Bush global leadership change going around. Spain and Italy have both elected leadership that isnt fond of the Bush admin. If this keeps up well probably see the UK and US follow suite.

I doubt Blair will change his relationship with Bush.

I'm just counting down the days until Bush is out of office. I hope the next candidates aren't as poor choices as during the last election.

This isn't anti Bush I think.

Four years ago Berlusconi promised that he would get the economy up to speed again. But the only thing he achieved was being immune for all the corruption charges he was facing at the time. That man was a joke, even though he already owned almost all commercial media in Italy before he became prime minister, and all state owned media afterwards, according to him all media was in the hands of the left, and off course against him.
I think you're overestimating America's influence over the world 11B. At the end of the month people want a decent pay check, their vote is based on their wallet. And Berlusconi certainly wasn't known as anyone's lapdog, you can't accuse him of that.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/04/10/D8GTA7H00.html



Thats a nice way of saying he doesnt like the Bush administration.

Arrivederci Silvio! See you in court!

Well it seems Prodi has come through the final winner by the most stupidly slim of margins (about 25000 votes). It was time for a change.

What shall we bet... the new government lasts... a year?

I guess we can only wait and see.

Silvio asked for a recount .. funny.

But you can't say it's a good thing for Italy, being so divided. A year seems a good guess, don't think they'll last much longer.

I also heard that it's the foreign votes (from italians that live outside italy for the slower readers) that decided it. I wonder how many of thsoe people are really up-to-date with what happens in their homecountry.
I mean, i'm not even aware of what happens in belgian politics, if i would live in another country i would know absolutely nothing about it.
Of course it doesn't matter for me since i voted blanco last time, but you get my point.

How are rules for voting when you live abroad btw?

I know what you're saying J, but in a country like Italy where the majority of the media is controlled by one man I daresay that the Italians living abroad are actually better informed about the real political situation than those in Italy itself.

I doubt the Italian media painted the same portrait of Silvio as basically all the foreign media did: that of a fraudulent clown. So I think the foreign voters would indeed vote against him more than Italians themselves.

Besides, Berlusconi has been using all his populist tricks lately. Calling all the Prodi voters assholes on national tv (wtf?) and saying that the "leftist media are controlling the elections". When he OWNS 80% of all mainstream media. It's a typical populist trick, like how Fox News likes to legitimate its far-right agenda by saying that all the other American media are left-wing and biased. And we all know that CNN; NBC and whatnot arescarcely 'leftwing'.

Well you're totally right (of course), but on the other hand international media focusses on the incompetence etc. of one candidate (now with Berlusconi, with the american elections there was Bush of course).
To stay with the american elections: nobody could understand how Bush got re-elected, but on the other hand what did we know about Kerry?
To liberally quote Satis: we had to choose the lesser of 2 evils.

I'm just saying that the flaws of the other candidate are often not mentioned (or just not that frequently) in foreign media. (not that the national media aren't biased as you say)
Of course this doesn't mean that Bush or Berluscino aren't clowns. I have no idea what's the deal with Prodi, i just vaguely remember his name from something in the european commision or something?

Meh, i just remember we're counting down to the world cup.