I like the Italians. Great food, pretty women, culturally unchallenged. What the hell do they see in old Silvio?
There is a chance he could be back in power in a couple of days and that would make it what? 4th time? The guy is incompetant, buffonish and a criminal to boot. He is so corrupt that he makes Mrs Mao look like a bastion of honesty.
The guy deserves a prison cell, not a possible return to the PM house.
Well Berlusconi’s been running a very populist campaign including offering to return taxes Italians paid last year. And even so, its very unlikely he’ll be PM with the centre-left Democrats leading in the polls and them likely to form a coalition government with the centrist supporters of Mario Monti.
They go for leaders who will restore their pride.
There’s a lot of reasons why he is popular. I don’t think you can put it down to any specific major cause.
First, Berlusconi originally came to power promising major economic reforms. These were widely popular with Italian businessmen who supported him at first. Italy’s job market is extremely antiquated, unions are extremely powerful and certain professions have an almost guild-like structure. For instance, anti-histamine tablets that you can buy for 60p from Tesco in the UK cost €12 in Italy and require one to see a pharmacist to obtain them — it’s not possible to get such drugs at anywhere other than a pharmacist due to the powerful pharmacy lobby. There’s many examples like this. So originally, Berlusconi was popular for a reason.
Now, how he kept his popularity: he or his family controls a lot of the media. By “a lot” I mean the three main TV channels on Italian TV as well as major newspapers, magazines and so on. He’s the Italian equivalent of Murdoch, but relatively even more powerful.
Further, Italy’s population skews old. The older generations tend to get most of their news from the TV and newspaper, rather than from the Internet. In this respect, for a large percentage of the Italian voting population the only news they get is that coming from Berlusconi’s echo chamber.
Also, Italy is really two countries stuck together to make one: the rich industrial North and the poor agricultural South. Berlusconi has a lot of support in the South of the country as he is quite successful in diverting money away from the North to the South.
The current situation in the Eurozone is also not helping. Italians were always a bit suspicious of the Euro. Now that it has turned out to be a disaster for everybody involved, with Monti being virtually forced upon Italy by the European Union, he can reposition himself as an opponent of the appointed technocracy.
Also, the opposition is split. There’s the established Centre-Left in Bersani, and also the new Cinque Stelle movement by a left wing comedian that is causing upset to the established parties.
Finally, there’s several cultural factors. A lot of Italians are terrified of “communists” (I suppose there’s good reasons for this — look up “Propaganda Due” on Wikipedia). Berlusconi’s established tactic is to write off any court case against him as the work of “communist judges”. Any criticism of him in the press is the work of communists: the British Economist newspaper has an obsession with him (look at their front covers over the last couple of years — he features on them more than the President of the US or the British PM). Naturally, he refers to the magazine as the “Ecommunista”. This tends to go a long way in Italy.
On the cultural front, there’s also the fact that Italians just don’t tend to see politician’s affairs in the same way that they are seen in e.g. the UK or US. Even a tenth of what Berlusconi had done would see a politician resign in the UK. Italians just don’t expect this for the most part.
I was going to say its because the economy did well under him, and voters will forgive a lot if economic growth is doing well.
But looking at a graph of real Italian GDP per capita, it actually almost flatlined under Berlisconi after a period of prolonged growth in the 90’s. So so much for that theory.
It’s all part of La dolce vita. 
And what has Berlusconi ever done to accomplish that?! His very existence is an international embarrassment to his country.
For many, being criticized by “outsiders” is a source of pride.
In a few months, I’m getting out to mind my own fucking business, from somewhere else, and so I’m leaving this shitty country of which I’m sickened.
– Berlusconi
Didn’t he keep a flock of hookers around? I mean, that’s a ballsy thing for a politician to do, so perhaps they admire his style more than his policies.
You mean, they won’t have Silvio Berlusconi to kick around any more?! 
Rupert Murdoch’s existence is an international embarrassment to Australia, Britain, America, and everyone called Rupert, yet the old fellow still lives and is willingly supported by those millions on millions of citizens who buy his products and politics without having to.
Of course, one can say the same thing of Windows.
Yeah, and if you read the details, it’s even more ludicrous that just getting a flock of hookers around. Also, last time I checked, he was investigated for having had paid sex with a minor.
Some suspect that the only reason why he intended to run this time was to avoid a variety of prosecutions (presumably by “adjusting” laws so that his own wrongdoings wouldn’t be prosecutable anymore, as he did in the past).
Yes, there has been no leader in the western world who has been more of an embarrassment for his country than him during the recent decades (For American democrats : yes definitely more than Bush II) and I too absolutely can’t understand why Italians kept voting for him.
I thought that is what Gerard Depardieu said about France right before he moved
to Russia!
If Berlusconi stopped escorting teenage girls, would this “loss of virility” then
become a campaign issue ?