The former Italian Prime Minister and business magnate Silvio Berlusconi reappeared this Saturday, a month after his hospital admission for pneumonia derived from the leukemia he suffers, with a speech recorded from the hospital in which he assured that he was “ready” to return to the battle.
“I have continued working these weeks and now I am ready to reorganize Forza Italia, ready to resume our battles for freedom with you,” said the leader at the closing of the convention of his political party in Milan, northern Italy, where he could not attend in person
Berlusconi, 86, appeared seated at a desk, heavily made up and with several papers and two copies of books written by him: “I am here for you, for the first time in a shirt and jacket after more than a month,” he said with the somewhat tired voice before a background made up of the logo of the formation, the Italian and the European flag.
Berlusconi recorded the message from his hospital room after doctors and family members prevented his release for fear that he would try to attend the two-day convention in person, according to the daily La Repubblica.
Convention attendees stood up to listen to the 20-minute speech, in which the tycoon reviewed the trajectory of the party he founded in 1994 and cleared up any unknowns about his leadership.
He hardly spoke about his state of health, after being admitted on April 5 to the Intensive Care Unit of the San Raffaele hospital in Milan and staying there for twelve days before going to the floor to receive chemotherapy treatment for leukemia that he has suffered for for a long time. time.
“A few nights ago, here in San Raffaele, I suddenly woke up with a question in my head that I couldn’t shake. Why am I here? What am I doing here? Why am I fighting here?”
Right away, Berlusconi introduced himself as a defender of “freedom” and “democracy” and recalled the reasons that led him to make the leap into politics following a meeting with businessmen who predicted the “victory of the Communists” in 1993.
Nor did he skimp when it came to announcing proposals for the future of Italy and the European Union, which according to him “counts for little in the world” and would not know how to defend itself against the hypothetical Chinese invasion of his country or of any other member state. “The best thing we could do is go to school and learn Chinese,” he said.
As if it were a campaign rally, for Italy he promised to raise wages, reduce the tax burden and modernize infrastructure, in addition to fighting the drought.
He left no hint of a possible replacement in the leadership of the party, whose logo used for the entire convention included the very personal motto “Berlusconi President” along with the letters of Forza Italia, while his right-hand man and Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, he insistently referred to him as leader.
Although he was satisfied that his party is part of the government coalition, led by Giorgia Meloni of the ultras Brothers of Italy, the tycoon claimed the independence of his project and distanced himself from the current prime minister.
Forza Italia, he asserted, is the “only party that continues and interprets the liberal tradition, the Christian tradition, the guarantee tradition, the Europeanist and Atlanticist tradition.”
After placing his party, whose intention to vote stands at 6% according to the latest polls, in the moderate spectrum of the Italian right, Berlusconi defended that, unlike others, it is made up of “men who come from work, of the professions and of the company”. “They -he added without clear references- for the most part have never worked, they have only done politics, they have talked and talked, mostly rubbish”.