Italian elections

Italians go to vote in the general election tomorrow and Monday, but in the dying days of the campaign it has become a referendum on the man who has ruled Italy for the past five years. "For better or worse," wrote Massimo Franco in Corriere della Sera yesterday, "Silvio Berlusconi has succeeded in transforming the election into a referendum on himself. Whether he wins or loses, he has radicalised the electorate to a greater degree than happened [at the election of] 2001." James Walston, professor of political science at the American University of Rome, explains: "Mr Berlusconi's strategy is based on the belief that he can only win by persuading those who voted for him in 2001, but this time prefer not to bother, to get out and vote." The viewing figures for the second TV debate with Romano Prodi last Monday were thus a heavy blow: down from 16 million to 12 million.

His effort since then has been to reach those of his support base for whom the low-key debates were a turn-off. "The aggressive, even vulgar tone of the Prime Minister is aimed at spreading fear," writes Massimo Franco, "and at forcing to the polling station that band of public opinion not registered in the opinion polls".

In the process this week Italy's Prime Minister has accused the "shameful, infamous" magistrates of Milan of plotting to bring him down, and the parties of the left of conspiring with left-wing journalists to bar him from television, thereby constituting what he called "a regime".

Reinforcing the fear, Mr Berlusconi's Minister of the Interior, Giuseppe Pisanu, claimed that two Islamist terror attacks had been foiled, On Thursday Mr Berlusconi said that the UN should send observers to monitor Italy's polls. "They must come to defend us from the gentlemen who are experts at stitch-ups," he said. "If things go on like this who knows what they will cook up."