Silvio Berlusconi’s second trouncing at the polls in a fortnight has left even his own allies questioning whether Italy’s scandal-tainted prime minister has finally lost his magic.
“Berlusconi is living the worst moment of his political career,” said Il Giornale, a daily owned by the playboy billionaire tycoon’s family.
The 74-year-old charmer “for the first time appears to have lost his capacity to be in harmony with his voters,” it said.
As final results from the referendums confirmed a humiliating defeat, the leftist La Repubblica said: “The magic flute is broken. After 20 years, Italians have stopped following Mr Berlusconi’s music.”
Despite government attempts to persuade voters to boycott the polls, three key policies – including a return to nuclear power – were scrapped, dealing another blow to a premier still reeling from a shock local election defeat.
“The social and cultural climate has changed and there is a strong will to express this change,” said Ilvo Diamanti, a columnist for La Repubblica.
Mr Diamanti pointed out it was the first time in 16 years that there was a majority turnout in a referendum, giving it legal validity.
Many commentators stressed the importance of the internet in mobilising voters and said the votes had passed virtually unnoticed in mainstream media until the scale of Mr Berlusconi’s defeat became clear.
With all the results tallied, the referendum against nuclear power was passed by a resounding 94 per cent – just like the vote to abolish a law aimed at giving the legally-embattled premier immunity.
The Vatican’s official daily, Osservatore Romano, said the Catholic vote played a key role in the outcome. It said the issue of water privatisation and nuclear power had particularly mobilised Catholics.
It said a block “including many Catholics who made their choice based on the social doctrine of the Church seems able to upset the political balance.”
The vote against Mr Berlusconi’s plans to resume a nuclear programme came at a bad time for the government, as Italians – already cautious about atomic energy – grew increasingly skittish after the Fukushima disaster in Japan.
The results marked a lack of confidence not only in government policies but also in Mr Berlusconi himself, as voters tired of his legal woes moved to strip him of legal protection.
Mr Berlusconi is a defendant in three ongoing trials involving allegations of bribery, fraud, abuse of power and paying for sex with a 17-year-old girl – charges he has laughed off.
Even in the hours leading up to the referendum result, the premier jested in a press conference with the Israeli Prime Minister about the alleged erotic “bunga bunga” parties held at his home.
Pointing at a joint press conference to a reproduction of a painting which featured Apollo strumming a lyre surrounded by nine muses, Mr Berlusconi said: “This is the bunga bunga of 1811!”
While the immunity law in practical terms offered the premier only limited protection – it had recently been revised by Italy’s Supreme Court – the popular decision to scrap it is a symbolic blow for the playboy premier. “Voters wanted to give the government a shove, express a message of dissatisfaction. It was a very political vote,” said Antonio Noto, an expert from the polling institute IPR-Marketing.
In the aftermath of the polls, the ruling party moved quickly to limit the damage by denying the results had any direct bearing on the government’s health.
But while jubilant Berlusconi critics hailed a political sea change, the hunger for change seemed to have infected the premier’s allies as well.