I'm getting quite intrigued with what's happening in Italy. I have not been in the country for four years but I feel that what is happening is quite important on a world-wide scale.

I find it unacceptable that a prime minister losing the elections refuses to accept the result even if his rivals victory was a narrow one. He was in charge, his government organised the election if anything dodgy happened I would be more inclined to think that it came from his own side. Furthermore, a member of his party was watching every single polling station. In my opinion, this is not too surprising, Silvio Berlusconi has never had any respect for his electorate, his opposition and democracy in general.
It is a well known fact that he has escaped various charges for bribery, corruption and so on. mainly on technicalities and loopholes. he entered politics to save his own interests, he owns TV and papers any of these reasons would be enough to make it unfit to run any so called democracy. In these five years he managed to trivialised any political thought, to make any as shallow as a TV commercial. He is the king of dumbing down.
Not by chance the expats Italians costed him the elections, those Italians that are untouched by the continuous brain washing by his TVs, those that are able to compare how a democracy should work (because they probably live in one) and how it should not.
I am not sure how this will end, but I think an important lesson is how dangerous any personality cult in politics is, how politics might be boring but how it can become dangerous when it is sold like washing powder. berlu

My fear is that he is now playing the dividing card, inciting more hatred from his factions (which includes very unsavoury racist and fascist types similar to those that the French centre-right refused to include in their coalition even if it had costed them the election)and worrying the left (which will certainly includes not very democratic and violent fringes). The rest in not history yet.