Opponents fear Berlusconi will gain from sympathy

Silvio Berlusconi's injuries are more serious than his personal doctor first thought and it could take him 25 days to recover fully from the fractured nose, broken teeth and split lip sustained in Sunday's attack when a 42-year-old Italian graphic designer, Massimo Tartaglia, threw a heavy souvenir model of the Milan cathedral in his face.

But his ego remains unharmed. He is said to be baffled by the idea that anyone would try to hurt him physically. "I wish everyone well, everyone," he is reported to have told the priest at the San Raffaele hospital where is being treated. "I can't understand why they hate me now."

His comments were reported just as it emerged that Tataglia's attack on the prime minister was apparently premeditated.

Two brothers told Italian television how they had been seen Tartaglia, who has a history of mental illness, standing near the rostrum set up for Berlusconi's address in front of the cathedral. He was muttering incoherently and saying he was "waiting for Berlusconi". One of the men told a policeman - but "he didn't seem at all interested and just went back to his post".  

Berlusconi's bafflement comes despite the very public way he has cheated on his wife, who is now divorcing him, despite his fury over his loss of immunity from prosecution which he has vowed to overturn, and despite the fact that only minutes before he was attacked on Sunday he had been shouting "Shame on you, shame on you!" at his political opponents and his perceived enemies in the media and the judiciary.

And perhaps neither his doctor - nor the priest - thought it wise to tell him that, within 24 hours of the attack, nearly 70,000 people had signed up to a Facebook page dedicated to his attacker Tartaglia, now in jail awaiting his court appearance.

What Berlusconi's opponents fear is that public sympathy for the PM, who at the age of 73 lost half a pint of blood through his injuries, could help his recently falling poll ratings.

Professor James Walston, a well-known pundit on Italian affairs who teaches at the American University of Rome, has even suggested that the sympathy generated by the attack could help Berlusconi's advisers "bounce" new legislation through parliament in an effort to regain his immunity from prosecution and avoid upcoming fraud trials.

Most of Berlusconi's opponents, including opposition politicians and those sections of the media he doesn't own, have rallied round the PM since the attack. Even /La Repubblica/, which has published most of the damaging stories about his alleged affairs with call-girls, wrote: "Friends and enemies, partisans and opponents must show solidarity with Berlusconi. What is at stake is nothing less than liberty."

However, one or two have suggested that Berlusconi brought the incident on himself. Opposition deputy Rosy Bindi, recently the recipient of one of Berlusconi's sexist jibes, said the prime minister "should not play the victim" and added that he was "one of the people who had created a climate of violence".

As for Berlusconi, his apparent disbelief that anyone would wish him ill has been put in perspective by his own spokesman, Paolo Bonaiuti. He admitted that his boss had expressed concerns for his own safety shortly before Sunday's rally in Milan. "Do you feel the climate of violence, the climate of hatred? Don't you think something might happen?" Berlusconi is said to have asked him.

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