52 2GM Saturday December 18 2021 | the times
Wo r l d
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He has been a cruise ship crooner,
property developer, TV mogul, football
chairman, prime minister and fraud-
ster. Now, at 85, Silvio Berlusconi is
aiming to round out his career by
moving into the presidential palace in
Rome that was once home to popes.
With a discreet lobbying campaign,
Berlusconi has reportedly been sound-
ing out the MPs who will elect the next
president in January when Sergio
Mattarella steps down.
A 2013 fraud conviction that briefly
banned him from political office and a
trial for bribery in a case linked to his
Bunga Bunga parties is apparently no
problem for the 16 per cent of Italians
backing him.
“He is a man of state and a guarantee
as president,” Antonio Tajani, deputy
leader of his Forza Italia party, said.
After ducking out of recent court
hearings with Covid, Berlusconi appears
to feel strong enough for the seven-year
mandate, even though he would be 92
when he steps down.
If he stands, Berlusconi could go up
against another heavyweight, the
prime minister, Mario Draghi, who has
earned rave reviews for his handling of
the economy and his vaccine drive
since being drafted in as a technocrat in
February.
Ten months on, 80 per cent of the
over-12s have had two doses of vaccine,
the economy is rebounding and plans
have been made to spend almost
€200 billion in EU grants and loans.
From a country synonymous with
sleaze, stagnation and squabbling
politicians, Italy was named country of
the year by The Economist magazine.
Draghi, 74, has kept the peace in a
diverse coalition government grouping
the centre-left Democrats, the anti-
establishment Five Star party and the
hard right League run by Matteo Salvini.
But now Draghi is facing choices about
his future and knows he risks political
turmoil whichever path he takes.
If he stays on as prime minister until
the next general election due in 2023,
he can retain control over the rebuild-
ing programme for one more year. But
since he is unlikely to stand in the elect-
ion, he faces the danger of becoming a
lame duck.
The alternative is to get himself
picked as president. It is usually a
ceremonial role and presidents step in
to sort out political crises but many
believe Draghi could expand the role.
The risk is the coalition government
collapses if he steps down as prime
minister, triggering elections early next
year. Enrico Letta, the Democratic
Party leader, said: “I don’t know if this
majority would survive without him.”
If there is an election, Salvini will ally
with Giorgia Meloni, the hard right
Brothers of Italy leader, who has stayed
in opposition this year.
Roberto D’Alimonte, of Luiss uni-
versity, said: “The paradox is Italy is
doing better on Covid than its neigh-
bours, its economy is growing and it has
the most respected leader in Europe,
yet things could unravel fast, heralding
a return of chaotic Italian politics.”Transgender women will be allowed to
enter the contest for the title of Miss
France, one of Europe’s most popular
national beauty contests, its chief has
announced.
Candidates would have to prove that
they had recorded their female civil
identity with the public registry, said
Alexia Laroche-Joubert, the newly ap-
pointed chairwoman of the Miss
France organisation.
Laroche-Joubert, a successful televi-
sion producer, was brought in three
months ago to shore up the annual con-
test, which has survived as a national
fixture with millions of TV viewers de-
spite decades of attacks for promoting
archaic stereotypes of women.
France
Charles Bremner Paris
Berlusconi plots
his last hurrah as
president of Italy
Berlusconi has the backing of Meloni
and Salvini, although he looks unlikely
to have the votes to clinch the job,
which is decided by 1,008 members of
parliament and local administrators.
His right-wing backers have about
450 votes, fewer than the 505 needed to
secure a majority, and even if he can
lure some votes from the 100 or more
unaligned MPs he may struggle to win,
paving the way for a candidate with
appeal across the board, like Draghi.
“If Draghi says he wants the job, he
will be hard to resist,” said D’Alimonte.
But Italian politics is never simple
and there is yet another twist. In a burst
of populist fervour three years ago, MPs
voted to reduce their own ranks by 345
members from 945 to 600 at the next
election.
Many know that the reduction will
kill off their chance of re-election and
have just a year left on the job if the next
election is held, as scheduled, in 2023.
But if Draghi takes the president’s job,
the government implodes and an
election is held early next year, their
days are truly numbered.
“Many MPs would prefer to remain
in parliament until 2023 and believe
only Draghi can guarantee that by
staying on as prime minister since there
are no other leaders able to hold this
coalition together,” Tajani said.
Fabrizio Pregliasco, a pollster, is not
convinced MPs will deny Draghi the
job of president just to cling on to their
seats. “In the spirit of self preservation,
MPs could also rally behind a new PM
installed by Draghi to keep the
coalition going. If Draghi becomes
president, I would say the chances of a
quick election are no more than 30-
40 per cent,” he said.
D’Alimonte refused to call the out-
come: “Italian politics is harder to
predict than ever.”Italy
Tom Kington Rome
Miss France to welcome trans contestants
On the eve of last Saturday’s Miss
France 2022 pageant, Élisabeth Mo-
reno, the equality minister, criticised
the contest, calling it outmoded and
discriminatory. At a meeting with La-
roche-Joubert, she said that the organi-
sation ought to be opened to transgen-
der candidates, like other contests
around the world, including Miss
Spain and Miss USA.
Roselyne Bachelot, the culture
minister, defended the tradi-
tional Miss France competition.
“It’s an amusing, glamorous
contest,” she said. “We need
a little lightness ... the
young women are far from
being bimbos.”The rules for registering a different
gender from the one assigned at birth
were eased in 2016 after pressure from
the Socialist government of the former
president François Hollande. Those
who wish to do so no longer have to
prove that they have undergone sur-
gery and other medical treatment. In-
stead, they only have to show that
they live in the identity of their new
gender and are accepted as such by
family, friends and their employers.
Laroche-Joubert did not say
when the new contest rules
would come into force. Diane
Leyre, 24, a property develop-
ment executive from Paris,
began her reign as the new
Miss France last weekend. She
described herself as an ardent
feminist.Mario Draghi’s work to stabilise Italy
may be undone by Silvio BerlusconiDiane Leyre, the newly
crowned Miss FranceT
he last child to be handed
over to US troops has been
found and is about to be
reunited with his family in
the United States, The
Times can reveal. The six-month-
old boy survived the split from his
parents during the US evacuation
from Kabul and a kidnap attempt
(Thomas Mutch writes).
In August, Suhail Ahmad’s
disappearance sparked a desperate
State Department search. He was
found safe and well in a house in
Kabul being cared for by an Afghan
taxi driver who took him in.
Images of infants being handed
by their families to US and British
troops over fences and through
gateways at Hamid Karzai airport
in Kabul encapsulated the
desperation felt by Afghan families
who had helped US and Nato troops
during the conflict that lasted
nearly 20 years. At least four babies
were separated from their families.
Ahmad was two months old when
he was handed to US marines
guarding the evacuation effort, but
US authorities were unable to find
him in the chaos. He was found by
Hamid Hammedullah, a taxi driver
from the Qasaba district of Kabul.
Speaking from his home in
Kabul, Hammedullah said: “I was
accompanying my brother, who had
a special visa to leave Afghanistan,
when I saw the boy. He was on a
footpath in Baron camp”.
He said that his condition was
“very poor” and that the infant was
on the ground crying, in dirty
clothes and desperately hungry and
thirsty. “I simply could not leave
him like this” he said. “I decided to
take him home and try to find his
family. If I could not find them, my
wife and I were prepared to raise
him as my own child.”
The baby’s family, who had
special visas because of his father’s
job as a guard at the US embassy,
entered the airport shortly after
handing him over but were unable
to find him. They were told that the
baby had probably been taken to
Qatar or the United Arab Emirates,
and so boarded their evacuation
flights but were then told that hiswhereabouts were unknown.
There is no evidence that the
baby in the main picture is the
infant rescued by Hammedullah.
But in a remarkable stroke of
fortune, several weeks later a
passenger in Hammedullah’s taxi
was part of the same Ismaili Hazara
community the child belonged to.
He told her about the boy and
she was able to track down the
Ahmadi family, who are now living
in Texas. The child’s grandfather,
who was living in Kabul, then
confirmed his identity. While theBaby lost in
Kabul chaos
reunited
with family