Silvio Berlusconi Branded 'Mentally Unstable'

(News Today) - He’s more well known for his embarrassing gaffes than his tactful diplomacy but with his latest joke about Adolf Hitler, outspoken Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi really has overstepped the mark.

Berlusconi, 73, whose reputation for smutty schoolboy humour is legendary, made the Hitler joke at a rally for young members of his People of Freedom Party - and went down a storm.

Besides Hitler, the Italian leader also made carry-on style ‘jokes’ hinting at his own sexual prowess.

But for even such a gaffe-prone politician it seems the Italian leader may have overstepped the mark. Political opponents even claimed he was “mentally unstable.”

In his first joke on Hitler, Berlusconi told the rally close to the famous Colosseum in central Rome: 'A little after Hitler died his supporters discovered he was in fact still alive.

'They went to look for him to convince him to come back and he replied: "Yes I will return but on one condition...this time I will be evil, right ?"'

Berlusconi then joked with the audience how he had a host of women chasing him to marry him because: 'I’m loaded. I’m a nice guy and they think that as I am older, I will die before them and they will get the lot.'

For good measure he then added: 'Legend has it, I know how to do it.'

The impromptu speech came before a cheering crowd of supporters on Monday.

But political foes said the ‘jokes’ were worrying.

Fabio Evangelisti, of anti sleaze party, Italy of Values said: 'We have sadly grown use to these gaffes, outbursts and offences by Berlusconi but to joke about Hitler is a new embarrassing low.

'A head of government making a joke like that in such poor taste would not be imaginable from any other country and Berlusconi should now apologise to Israel and the Jewish community in Italy.'

Antonio Di Pietro, a former anti corruption magistrate and leader of the Italy of Values Party, added: 'It’s no longer a question of politics but a psychiatric problem with him.'

Berlusconi is known for his jokes and in the past and is being divorced by his long suffering wife Veronica Lario, 53, following revelations of relationships with a teenage lingerie model and escorts.

Playing on his Lothario reputation - he once told a female Italian Cabinet Minister he would marry her if he was not already married - he once joked how his rampant sex life was affecting his memory.

At a previous rally he once said: 'This morning in the hotel I fancied having sex with the maid. She turned to me and said ‘But Mr Prime Minister we only just did it an hour ago.'

Then in another quip on the Virgin Mary he said: 'Straight after Jesus was born, St Joseph saw the Virgin Mary looking a little serious and preoccupied so he said: ”Why are you so sad?”

She replied: 'It’s nothing, don’t worry.’

But Joseph insisted and in the end Mary said: 'Oh well as you're asking, it’s down now I suppose but I actually wanted a little girl.'

He is no stranger to controversy.

In 2003 he caused outrage by comparing a German MEP to a concentration camp guard while last year he said that President Barack Obama was “well suntanned’.

Last year he left Angela Merkel waiting to greet him at a conference while he made a call on his mobile phone.

Source : kompas

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