Berlusconi versus Prodi

In Italy it is always election time, except when we have to mourn a Pope or we are waiting for white smoke in the Vatican.
The main concern of every political man in Italy is not what to do to help the Italian citizen, but how to convince him to vote on the coming next elections.
So between one election and the other there is ALWAYS a period of “pre elections”.
But this is the most exciting phase of it: the real, close the election, pre election time.
The fundamental concept of Italian Political life was the many-party system.
Following real democratic spirit, everybody was able to have his voice heard, no matter how small he was.
And this is the first change of the last period.
We aim to have, like the rest of the world, two parties fighting against each other.
To do that, all the small converge in a “Union”.
The essence of the two-party system is that there are either 500 parties or one; but never, in any circumstances, are there two.
To explain: both parties reflect such a vast spectrum of opinion from left to right that the left wings of both parties are poles apart from their right wings and in no other country would politicians ideologically so remote from each other even dream of belonging to the same political organization.
You may say that while the Left party has a few real leftists and the Liberals a few real rightists, the rest of the two parties simply overlap and one single party would do quite adequately instead of two.
But there is nothing illogical in this. In most cases it does not really matter which party you belong to.
Once it was different.
At that time the Left really had a Program and carried it out.
The trouble was that they did not have ENOUGH program and used up the little they had too quickly.
Then they started to scratch their heads in amazement: what to do next?
While scratching they fell from power.
A violent dispute ensued.
While dispute is still raging and while some Socialists are still trying to convince one another that their leader would be more at home in the Liberal Party, the Liberals are carrying on a normal and by no means extremist socialist policy.
They speak of the blessings of the Welfare State as if they had not opposed it tooth and nail; they assure us in all their manifestos that they are doing more for the poor, the old age pensioners, the down trodden, the workers, the underdogs.
In other words, they are riding on the crest of world prosperity, and they are pretty good riders.
A Liberal becoming a Socialist would be a normal phenomenon in any country; for a Socialist to become a Liberal would be nonsense anywhere else.
It is absolute nonsense in Italy too, but absolute nonsense is the normal run of things here.
Indeed, the customary reward for a life spent in a determined fight against privilege, seems to be an elevation to be able to enjoy all privileges (including high salaries and high pensions, besides ALL THE REST)
Suddenly you may realize-as I did- the devilish pattern behind it all.
The Socialist party, for once, is being really Machiavellian.
As they are obviously, or so it seems, unable to take over from the Liberals through elections, they enforce a Change of The Status Quo by more subtle methods: they let the Liberals carry out a Socialist policy while they gradually and most unnoticed form the new aristocracy and gain new privileges.