Grillo lashes out in ‘requiem’ for Berlusconi
(ANSA) – Rome, November 27 – Anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) leader, comedian-turned-politician Beppe Grillo, dedicated a vitriolic requiem to the alleged demise of three-time premier and media mogul Silvio Berlusconi ahead of a Senate vote later on Wednesday that is expected to strip him of his parliamentary seat after a tax-fraud conviction.
“I would like to be able to say we are on the eve of the downfall of a regime. But it’s just the end of a banal man-for-all-seasons, one who over the past two decades has been as functional to Anglo-American financial giants as to the Soviet KGB, with the Vatican, the troika, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Libya and the entire international banking system in between”, the post read in the characteristically grandiloquent style of Grillo’s blog.
Proceeding to compare the supposed downfall of Berlusconi to that of dictators such as Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, and Argentina’s Jorge Videla, the blog goes on to lash out at the man who “sold, pauperized, despoiled the country”.
Grillo ends his tirade with a warning and a promise: “The regime still solidly on its feet. The road is long and we will travel it until we will have changed the country”.
Berlusconi is expected to lose Wednesday’s vote as Premier Enrico Letta’s centre-left Democratic Party (PD) and Grillo’s 5-Star Movement (M5S) have said they will back the ejection and should be able to form a majority.
The three-time premier has vowed to continue leading his revived Forza Italia party from outside parliament, as Grillo does.
The M5S leader is barred from office because of a 20-year-old conviction for vehicular homicide.