Can Berlusconi return to power?

Frank Paul Weber, the daily's Italian correspondent, is sceptical about the viability of a grand coalition after this weekend's parliamentary elections. "The Italians are kidding themselves ... with illusions of their ability to bring about this right-left union. The grand coalition in Germany is more the rule than the exception there: the chancellors, from Kohl to Schröder, often had to work with a Bundesrat - the equivalent of the Italian Senate - controlled by their opponents. Reforms were often the fruit of long negotiations between right and left in mixed parliamentary commissions made up of representatives from both chambers. ... These everyday grand coalitions fostered in the institutions, and a certain proclivity for compromise is, by contrast, entirely absent from the Italian political scene. In this sense, the 'Veltrusconi' scenario to manage the Euro zone's third largest economy ... worries more than it reassures."

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