The prime minister has decided to contest the result and to use a 'mutilated victory' as a long-term weapon.

Bush knows that Berlusconi will lose, and is giving him a farewell party. This new legislature may be stillborn, and we may be in for a period of political instability.

He still has an admirable ability to interpret the country.

The era of Berlusconi seen as a wizard who would solve the country's problems with a magic wand is over. But Berlusconi as the symbol of a social bloc, of interests and fears of the left that remain strong in this country, is not done.