ROME — When Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi emerged from his bribery trial one recent day, a crowd awaited.
"You'll end up like Ceausescu!" a heckler cried out, alluding to the reviled Romanian dictator who was summarily executed after a brief trial.
His famous temper flaring, Berlusconi demanded that his aides get the man's name, and he promised to sue. Later, speaking on one of the many television stations he controls, Berlusconi said he was convinced that the protester was planted by communists out to get him.
He is a victim, he said, of a vast left-wing conspiracy aimed at toppling his government that involves, among others, several journalists and the judiciary that is prosecuting him -- "men in togas," as he calls the judges, "a cancer to be eradicated."
"Coup plotters," he spewed.
There is no more colorful elected leader in Europe today -- and perhaps none more controversial -- than Silvio Berlusconi.
Where else in the Western world can a businessman amass great wealth, own major media companies, become leader of the nation, stand trial for corruption, have laws changed that he doesn't like or that might touch on his business empire, and continue to rule unimpeded and with considerable national support?
In a land where governments can fall like seasonal leaves and the level of political discourse is the stuff of high theater, Berlusconi has shown a remarkable ability to survive and an unflinching tenacity to go after his critics.
The son of a bank clerk, Berlusconi, 66, is Italy's richest man, one of the richest people on the continent, and Forbes magazine last year ranked him the third most powerful billionaire in the world.
Supporters say the media tycoon is exactly what Italy needs: a decisive strongman who can reshape the national economy and take the country into the future the way he would take an ailing corporation into profit.
Opponents fear that Berlusconi -- who controls not only the executive and legislative branches but also most electronic media, and having declared war on the judiciary -- is waging a dangerous campaign against Italy's democratic institutions that will ultimately curtail essential civil liberties.
The prime minister sees things in the reverse. It is a leftist-dominated judiciary, he says, that is attempting to undermine Italian democracy by bringing down a man elected twice with comfortable majorities.
As proof of the conspiracy against him, he cites -- as he did during testimony at his trial last week -- a dizzying string of brushes with the law: 1,600 court hearings, 500 police raids, 150 bank inspections. Work, he says, for 125 lawyers.
"My [business] group and I suffered a veritable judicial persecution, which is unique in the history of all democracies," Berlusconi said recently on the state TV news program, Excalibur.
Berlusconi's troubles took on added urgency because Italy will assume the rotating six-month presidency of the European Union on July 1. The looming semester is an important one because the EU is expected to adopt its constitution.
Some in Europe were nervous about the Italian prime minister's ability to lead effectively if dogged by a very public trial and found guilty.
The 1985 case alleged that Berlusconi, in cahoots with a leading pasta maker, bribed judges to influence the sale of a food conglomerate.
Berlusconi has denied any wrongdoing. But more conveniently, his center-right coalition last week pushed through an immunity law that freezes the trial as long as Berlusconi is in office. Immunity from prosecution -- abolished in 1993 as part of a judicial crusade against corruption -- was restored for the country's top five officials.
Despite Italy's long history of corrupt politicians, Berlusconi's trial marked the first time that a sitting prime minister has had to testify as a criminal defendant.
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'Conflict of Interest'
Berlusconi and his family own Italy's three main commercial television networks and, as prime minister, he has enormous influence over the three state channels. He also owns Italy's largest publishing house, its dominant advertising agency and a food conglomerate, and is attempting to acquire the principal insurance corporation. And for added cachet, in addition to villas and yachts the world over, Berlusconi purchased the highly successful Milan soccer team.
Opponents cry "conflict of interest," and many of Berlusconi's supporters agree that, at the very least, the appearance of one exists, but they say it doesn't matter. The arrangement may be comparable to Bill Gates becoming president of the United States, with an absolute majority in the House and Senate, having purchased ABC and CBS while continuing to run and profit from Microsoft.
"This doesn't happen in Uzbekistan. It couldn't happen in the former Soviet Union," groused Francesco Rutelli, a former mayor of Rome who heads the center-left Olive Tree opposition coalition.
