Analysis: Berlusconi back on top

BERLIN, April 17 (UPI) -- Italian premier-to-be Silvio Berlusconi has vowed to boost Italy's economy and fight crime, but he will also have to convince governments across Europe that he will be able to work with, rather than against them.

In the end, Italian voters were fed up with their politicians. The country's economy is in shambles, inflation towers at a two-decade high, and Italian politics has developed into a poor parody of itself: Images of lawmakers fighting and spitting at each other in Parliament went around the world.

Berlusconi's unexpectedly robust victory also means a staggering defeat for Italy's left -- of the 26 parties that were present in Parliament before the vote, only six survived, and none of them belongs to the Communist bloc.

Berlusconi's coalition won 47 percent of the vote, compared with 38 percent for the group of opposing candidate Walter Veltroni, the former mayor of Rome.

While Berlusconi called the election "an important moment in the history of our country," the left-leaning daily La Repubblica called Berlusconi's victory "an electoral tsunami that redraws Italy's political landscape."

Italy's most prominent leftist leader, Fausto Bertinotti, announced his retirement from politics noting the left had suffered a "complete defeat of unforetold proportions."

A day after his election victory, Berlusconi, 71, in his first speech portrayed himself as a seasoned world leader, noting that French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and U.S. President George W. Bush had already congratulated him. He would have dinner this weekend with Russian President Vladimir Putin, he added.

Across Europe, the political class isn't as excited; behind closed doors they worry that Berlusconi's extravagant government style may stir commotion inside Europe. In Berlin, members of Germany's Socialist half of the government point to the fact that Berlusconi's alliance contains xenophobic parties that may block European integration. Berlusconi once told a German parliamentarian he was the perfect example to be cast as a Nazi concentration camp guard; earlier this week he angered Spaniards when he made fun of the high number of women in the Spanish Cabinet. Madrid was becoming "too pink," he told Spanish newspaper El Pais. After Sarkozy, Merkel now has to battle another egocentric leader, German politicians say.

Berlusconi last served as prime minister from 2001 until 2006, when he was defeated by Romano Prodi; he also governed from 1994 to 1996, but both of these stints ended with limited success, mainly because of poor economic and fiscal records.

Nevertheless, there are several observers who are cautiously optimistic that Berlusconi's alliance can change Italy for the better. For one, Italian politics simply can't get any worse; secondly, it's an advantage that the days are gone when several minor, bickering parties managed to hold the government hostage on important decisions, thus blocking progress.

Determined as ever, Berlusconi on Tuesday announced he would hold Cabinet meetings in Naples, the city that has been battling a garbage disposal crisis, and that he would return there until that crisis was solved. Expect also a crackdown on illegal immigrants and criminals, which the 71-year-old likes to call the "army of evil."

"One of the first things to do is to close the frontiers and set up more camps to identify foreign citizens who don't have jobs and are forced into a life of crime," Berlusconi said on Italian television. "Secondly we need more local police constituting an 'army of good' in the piazzas and streets to come between Italian people and the army of evil."

And of course there will be a return to the political alliance with Washington -- Bush and Berlusconi are known to like each other, and they have teamed up before to fight terrorism. But it is first and foremost Italy's interior situation that is in a crisis, and Berlusconi now has a third, and (probably) final chance to change the country for the better.