The Berlusconi party Forza Italia has set the course for the future. At a party conference that was strongly tailored to the founder and sole ruler Silvio Berlusconi, who died in June, the 213 delegates in Rome on Saturday unanimously elected Berlusconi’s longtime follower, Antonio Tajani, as the new chairman. The vice chancellor and secretary of state was the only candidate. The 69-year-old had already coordinated party work during the patriarch’s final months.
The former air force officer Tajani had been active at Berlusconi’s side for 30 years – he was his government spokesman, among other things – and was therefore chosen as his successor: hardly anyone knew the politician Berlusconi as well as he did. Accordingly, he gave an impassioned speech after his election, in which he repeatedly referred to his predecessor. He received a lot of applause and a standing ovation at the end. He positioned Forza Italia as a centre-right conservative, bourgeois and Christian popular party. She is committed to family, liberality, entrepreneurship and Europe, he said.
But Tatjani’s situation is precarious. The party was Berlusconi’s creation. His successor no longer calls himself “president” (“because there could only be one president”), but party secretary, as is customary with other parties in Italy. His mandate only lasts until the next party conference shortly before the 2024 European elections, which will be the touchstone for the question of whether the party can survive at all without Berlusconi. This question is quite open. This begins with the strong emphasis on European policy, for which Tajani stands as a former EU Commissioner and President of the European Parliament. The chairman of the European People’s Party (EPP), the German MEP Manfred Weber (CSU), praised Tajani’s commitment in Brussels in a welcoming address, saying that Europe is firmly anchored in Forza Italia’s DNA, also thanks to Silvio Berlusconi.
If the party wants to survive, it needs the favor of the Berlusconi family
But Europe is not popular on Italy’s right-wing political spectrum, and Forza Italia certainly did not get its best election results of up to 29 percent because of a pro-Europe orientation, but because of the other positions and the extraordinary charisma of the party founder. Tajani obviously doesn’t have that, even though he tried to adopt a combative tone on Saturday.
Also, Forza Italia was always a bit of a private affair for the billionaire and media entrepreneur. He treated her like his sixth child – and also provided her financially. Today the party owes almost 100 million euros and depends on the goodwill of the Berlusconi family. Tajani was in the Berlusconi team, but he wasn’t part of the family. The role of the party leader’s last companion, Marta Fascina, who sits in parliament for Forza Italia and was influential during his lifetime, is unclear. The 33-year-old, who is sometimes called “Lady 100 milioni” because of her share of the inheritance, did not take part in the party conference, saying it was “still too early for that,” she said.
So far, Tajani has relied primarily on the eldest daughter Marina, who plays a central role in her father’s company. He calls her every day, he recently said in an interview. Although the children of the deceased sent a friendly greeting to the party congress, which was gratefully acknowledged, they also made it clear that they did not want to succeed their father in politics. The question is whether and when they will pull the plug on the party – especially if it fails to deliver good election results.
Even under Berlusconi, Forza Italia had lost a lot of support among voters. The last parliamentary elections in October ended with 8.1 percent of the votes in third place behind Giorgia Melonis Fratelli d’Italia (26 percent) and even behind the Lega of Transport Minister Matteo Salvini (8.8 percent). It soared to 9.5 percent after the patriarch’s death, but has since slipped back to previous levels. It is currently at seven percent in polls, while the Lega come in at ten percent and Melonis Fratelli d’Italia at almost 30 percent. The exclamation point that the organizers of the party conference put behind the slogan “Forza Futura” is more a request than a description of the state.
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