I wish we wouldn't have to write about Berlusconi anymore, but it's impossible... Politically wise, Berlusconi is the equivalent of someone who crashes a party, ruining everyone's business but his own, and who his therefore forever talked about in all the subsequent parties.

This will probably be commented by many Italian bloggers, but, anyway: Apparently, the day before being kicked out of office Berlusconi wrote a letter to all the Heads of State of Europe, to undermine his successor's credibility as his last official act in public office. By doing this, he also undermined the remains of Italian credibility, although that's obviously none of his concerns.
According to L'Espresso, Berlusconi wrote to Blair, Zapatero and co. something like this: "I am going away, but I will be back when the votes will be recounted. I am the one who won the elections, and if I'm going away it's only because of the faulty Italian electoral system."

It must be noted that Berlusconi's government "corrected" the italian electoral system few weeks before the vote, so he can't blame anyone but himself. Also, in the meantime votes have been recounted finding nothing, no Florida case. But that's not the point.
The point is, if Italy was a Democracy, such a thing would not be possible. There would be enough respect for the rules and for the vote to keep one's personal resentment out of the question. But Italy is not a democracy, it is a oligarchy¹, and in the oligarchic mode of rule the going down families are always allowed some little dishonest see-you-later trick.

_{1. I know, I've said that before, what do you want. Everyone has his own obsessions.}

On the left: playbill of an italian sexy comedy of the seventies, "nighty nurse". It just came out searching for 'italian parliament' on Google images.

I am glad I don't have a TV, because just from the web sites and the billboards one can get how tedious and boring this electoral days are getting to be here in Italy.
How many words wasted, how much useless yelling, how many phony smiles to the camera, how many lies!
I never loathed politics so much in my life as in this special moment when one is supposed to be glad to see Berlusconi being kicked out of office.

First thing, nobody is so sure yet he will be kicked out. Italian people sometimes can be really surprising in the way they can disappoint you. Second thing, the point is not even Berlusconi anymore. But the entire italian political oligarchy, or rather, that same bunch of phony faces always sitting at the highest offices chained to their privileges.
You can see them, on billboards and TV, year after year: they grow old, greying their hair, gaining weight, occasionally balding, divorcing... always there, sentencing and preaching and yelling, until death parts us.

Why is this oligarchy so unmovable?
Well, because the game is rigged, simple as that.
As an italian voter, you have no list at disposal from where to pick your favorite candidate. Your vote is good just to choose from which party you want to represented. All the rest is taken care of by the same parties after the vote.
This is paradoxical and absurd, because representation at the parliament is made by free individuals, not by parties: free individuals who, according to the italian constitution, should not be subjected to anybody's will in the exercise of their prerogatives.
In Italy, parties decide it all and rule the parliamentarians at will. Parties decide which individuals actually go to seat at the parliament, you like it or not. On the ballot paper, on election day, only abstract and meaningless symbols are showed to you, and the only thing you are able to focus on in the polling booth are the faces of party leaders, the mellow or authoritarian tone of their lousy voices.

The italian citizen is not allowed to exercise any real influence on the composition of parliament. This way Oligarchies are created in Times of Democracy. This rule is called partitocracy and Italy is the purest example of the genre.

Voting in this country may be useful sometimes, even necessary. But always, always an insult to your dignity and intelligence.
End of report for today, since it actually didn't report anything but our present discouragement and we took too much space even for that.