Italian left does not have good taste in women, says Berlusconi

ITALY: Silvio Berlusconi, the favourite to win Italy's national elections on April 13th-14th, said his rivals have poor taste in women and that their female politicians are uglier and less educated than women in his party.

"The left doesn't even have good taste when it comes to women," Berlusconi told Sky TG24 television in an interview yesterday. The women in his People of Liberty party "are more beautiful and, moreover, all have super degrees. When I say ours are better looking it's because when I look around in parliament there really is no comparison".

Mr Berlusconi has made controversial comments about women before. Visiting the New York Stock Exchange in September 2003, he told investors to put their money in Italy because "the secretaries are beautiful, so at least you can take pleasure working there".

Recently the billionaire, who controls Italy's biggest private TV network, advised a young, financially strapped female graduate to "perhaps look to marry a millionaire, like my son, or someone who doesn't have such problems".

Berlusconi is courting votes from the opposite sex by praising female supporters for their beauty and by promising at least four women in his next cabinet. His previous government had just two. Former equal opportunity minister Stefania Prestigiacomo, named by a national poll as one of the sexiest women in Italian politics, is poised for a post in the next government if Berlusconi wins.

He has also been known to make racy public comments about his own marriage. In response to newspaper reports of his wife Veronica's alleged affair with Venice mayor Massimo Cacciari, Berlusconi joked at a 2002 news conference with Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen that he might "introduce Rasmussen to my wife, because he is much better looking than Cacciari".

In 2007 Veronica demanded an apology from her husband in a front-page letter to daily la Repubblica , after reporters overheard him tell one young women "if I weren't already married, I'd marry you right away", and another, "with you I'd go anywhere".

- (Bloomberg)

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times