The great paradox of democracy is that the political freedom it needs to thrive also gives succour to its enemies. A democratic society must tolerate, up to a point, the activity of politicians whose instincts are fundamentally undemocratic. Evidence of that is clear in the fact that Silvio Berlusconi is the freely elected prime minister of Italy... His earlier premierships saw him accused by opponents — but never convicted — of corruption. He has also routinely been denounced for nepotism, financial mismanagement and socially divisive reactionary nationalism. But still he won. Mr Berlusconi was elected on promises of economic revival... leavened with promises to crack down on crime and immigration...

In government, he has proposed draconian racial profiling, fingerprinting Roma children and threatening to take those who beg on Italian streets away from their parents, a measure seen by leaders of other minorities as a throwback to Italy’s fascist past. Mr Berlusconi has also returned to a favourite legislative theme — protecting himself from the various corruption charges. He wants to pass a law that would make the holders of top public offices, naturally including his own, immune from prosecution. When he tried to introduce the same measure in 2004, the supreme court ruled that it was unconstitutional...

This agenda is little short of all-out war against a judiciary and those sections of the media determined to hold him to account. (The Prime Minister has substantial control over commercial television and uses his office to influence the state broadcaster.) The judges who pursue him, he says, are “a cancer in our democracy”. It has all been conducted in Mr Berlusconi’s trademark brazen, flamboyant manner that, were it not so sinister, would be reminiscent of a circus ringmaster. Mr Berlusconi’s leadership is a tragedy for Italians, although the inconvenient truth of the matter is that so many of them voted for him. That should serve as a warning to other western European countries... If that is the great paradox of democracy, the greatest cliché in politics is that nations get the leaders they deserve. But surely Italy and Europe deserve better than Silvio Berlusconi.

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