by Ariel Levy In 2008, during his fourth campaign to become Prime Minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi released a video in which a beautiful blond woman, standing in a grocery store beside a pile of bananas, sings, “There’s a big dream that lives in all of us.” A throng of women belt out the chorus together under a cloudless sky: “Meno male che Silvio c’รจ”— “Thank God there’s Silvio.” Other women in various settings pick up the tune: a young mother in a pediatrician’s office, surrounded by nurses; a brunette in a beauty parlor, dressed for work in a camisole that barely covers her breasts. To American eyes, the ad looks like a parody, or perhaps some new kind of musical pornography that’s about to erupt into carnality. The finale depicts a passionate young swimming instructor singing to a pool full of women in bathing suits: “Say it with the strength possessed only by those who have a pure mind: Presidente, we are with you!”
These days, you would have to possess an unusually pure mind to look at that pool full of young women without picturing the pool at Berlusconi’s estate, Arcore, just outside Milan. Along with the basement disco and the upstairs bedrooms, the pool is featured almost daily in Italian newspapers as one of the sites where the Presidente reportedly hosted scores of orgies—or, as they have become known around the world, Bunga Bungas. (There is heated debate about the origin of the term. Some say Berlusconi picked it up from Muammar Qaddafi—his friend, until recently. Others cite an off-color joke set in Africa.) The Bunga Bungas are a source of humiliation for many Italians, and of humor for others, including the Presidente, as Berlusconi is called. Not long ago, he told a convention of the Movement for National Responsibility, upon hearing its theme song, “My compliments on your anthem. I will use it as one of my songs for a Bunga Bunga!”
Berlusconi has always seemed pleased with himself. In 2006, he offered some advice to Italians living below the poverty line: “Do it my way and earn more money!” (His net worth is estimated at nine billion dollars.) He has described himself as “the best in the world—all the other world leaders wish they could be as good as I am.” Lately, however, his bravado has sounded increasingly misplaced. The Italian economy is stalled, and unemployment is at 8.4 per cent. In 2009, he was lambasted for his inadequate response to earthquakes in Abruzzo, which killed more than three hundred people and left seventy thousand homeless. Last July, Gianfranco Fini, the president of the parliamentary Chamber of Deputies, who had been a crucial ally for sixteen years, broke away to form his own party. And then came Ruby.
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