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Uh-oh. Silvio Berlusconi is on Instagram


umbertino
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He’s holding his cute dog, he’s watching Eurovision – bunga bunga-loving Berlusconi is in the midst of a posting frenzy. And it all has a political purpose

 

 

Monday 25 May 2015 12.30 BST

By John Hooper

 

 

 

 

He’s back! Last week, Silvio Berlusconi made his debut on Instagram. Since then, he and his media advisers have thrown themselves into the task of updating the former Italian prime minister’s image – and images – with an almost reckless energy.

 

From a standing start on Tuesday, they managed to post 78 photographs in five days (several of them artfully filtered) and accrue around 21,500 followers. There are pictures of Silvio Berlusconi addressing rallies, Silvio Berlusconi with his fragrant, 29-year-old girlfriend, Francesca Pascale; Silvio Berlusconi with their dog, Dudù and Silvio Berlusconi hard at work at his desk on, if not affairs of state these days, maybe something to do with his party, his businesses or AC Milan.

 

The reason for this flurry of activity is not hard to guess: on Sunday, elections are to be held in seven of Italy’s 20 regions. It will be the first big test of public opinion for Berlusconi and his Forza Italia party since he returned to active politics in March. That was after he finished 10 months of community service at a home for dementia patients – the sentence imposed on him following his conviction for tax fraud.

 

Berlusconi has learned from Italy’s young prime minister, Matteo Renzi, that social media can win over voters on a grand scale. But they can also be uncomfortably revealing, and one of the media tycoon’s latest postings to Instagram has a doleful air that is strikingly at odds with the others.

 

In one image, a wonky camera angle relegates the great man to a corner of the frame where he sits at a table resting his chin on his hand on a Saturday night watching … the Eurovision song contest on the telly. It all seems a very long way from those wild bunga bunga parties. On the table, there are some half-drunk glasses of wine. But you sense a cup of Ovaltine would not look out of place.

 

If, over the past few years, the 78-year-old former prime minister has lost momentum, then so too has his party. Currently, Forza Italia is polling on average less than 12%. Renzi’s Democratic party (PD) is averaging more than three times that figure. Yet at the last general election in 2013 – bunga bunga and the economic crisis not withstanding – Forza Italia’s precursor party won 22% of the vote. And in 2008 it stormed back to power with 37%.

 

As the leader of a movement with an ever-shrinking consensus, Berlusconi is becoming the Nick Clegg of Italian politics, and for a not dissimilar reason. Before Renzi seized power at the beginning of last year, and apparently believing that an understanding with the prime minister-to-be could help with his various legal problems, Berlusconi agreed to back Renzi’s plan for constitutional reforms. Until just a few weeks ago, the two men were tied together in a kind of non-aggression pact.

 

With Berlusconi unwilling, and his followers unable, to mount effective opposition, the way was open for the new leader of the Northern League, Matteo Salvini, to fill the breach. His party, which espouses a hard right agenda not unlike that of the National Front in France, has leapfrogged Forza Italia (though it still polls less than 15%). Berlusconi thus needs to use every trick in the book to reverse his and his party’s seemingly unstoppable decline. Instagram could be one of many.

 

But will it be effective? Renzi, who has demonstrated a Barack Obama-like mastery of social media, was using Instagram long before many US politicians. Yet for the past 12 months he and his team appear not to have put up a single post. So either they know something the rest of us don’t. Or Italy’s geeky young prime minister has just allowed himself to be outflanked by a granddad.

 

 

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Silvio Berlusconi with his dog, Dudù. ‘From a standing start, Berlusconi has posted 78 photographs in five days.’ Photograph: Instagram/silvioberlusconi2015

 

 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/25/silvio-berlusconi-instagram-talian-prime-minister

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Silvio, BABE ! You don't call, you don't write for long time !! You is back ! Adorable ! You and the Pup, simply adorable. Call my agent Babe, lets do lunch !!!

 

Let me ask, does everyone deserve a second chance ? You decide.

Edited by 10 YEARS LATER
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Silvio, BABE ! You don't call, you don't write for long time !! You is back ! Adorable ! You and the Pup, simply adorable. Call my agent Babe, lets do lunch !!!

 

Let me ask, does everyone deserve a second chance ? You decide.

No. He screwed up too much for too long

Edited by umbertino
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Ya got that right Brother Umbertino - Some politicians is the wackiest folks, huh.

Yep...and besides... at 79 and with all that money... He can finally relax.. And he's he's got a 29 year old GF to take care of ( at various levels).. She ( the GF)  graciously let us ( the people) know she is not thinking of entering Politics.... ..No comment

Edited by umbertino
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