Old men rule in ageing Italy

ROME, Mar 8: ''Time and age have no effect on me,'' Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi recently boasted, showing off the wonders of a face-lift and hair transplant that make him look younger than his 69 years.

His political rival Romano Prodi also looks good for his 66 years -- although he has not had any nips or tucks -- and last December he ran his first marathon.

Meanwhile, Italy's 85-year-old President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi criss-crosses the country with great vigour pursuing a punishing schedule that would test a man half his age.

The trio's resilience is admirable, but no amount of cosmetic surgery or jogging can disguise the fact that Italy's political leaders are among the oldest in the world and show little inclination to make way for the younger generation.

The same phenomenon is reflected across Italian society, with an ageing elite guiding an increasingly aged population in a country with one of the lowest fertility rates in the world.

A report prepared by the Rome-based think-tank Glocus says 54 per cent of public leaders in Italy, defined as the 5,500 people listed in the 2004 edition of ''Who's Who,'' are over 60, up from 46 per cent in 1998, with 23.4 per cent over 70.

''The great Italian problem is our fear of our own resources and a lack of faith in the future,'' said Vera Slepoj, president of Italy's national association of psychologists.

''Every lobby in Italy builds a defensive system. There is no generational renewal, there is no courage to risk change.'' This defensive system is most visible in politics where the upper echelons have barely changed in a decade, surviving crushing defeats, crises and scandals with astonishing ease.

DEJA VU

Berlusconi and Prodi are challenging each other to become Prime Minister in 2006 just as they did in 1996.

And today, just as 10 years ago, all the main leaders of the centre-right coalition parties are the same, including Umberto Bossi, the head of the Northern League, who suffered heart failure in 2004 and walks and talks with difficulty.

It is a similar picture on the centre-left with only a couple of new faces managing to fight their way to the front.

''It seems that when people get power here, all they are interested in is accumulating more power and holding onto it,'' said Filippo del Corno, a 36-year-old composer who has started a campaign to promote young people in the arts world.

''How can young people get interested in politics? Who can they relate to?,'' he says, pointing enviously to Britain, where Tony Blair became Prime Minister aged 43, and to Spain, where Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was also 43 when he became prime minister.

Judging by the insults that ricochet around politics, you could be forgiven for thinking that Italy was still entrenched in the Cold War and had not yet crossed into the 21st century.

Barely a day passes without politicians accusing each other of being Stalinists or Fascists, while Berlusconi himself is particularly obsessed by the ''red menace'', regularly warning that the Communists are threatening to bury democracy in Italy. Del Corno says anachronistic thinking is also rife in his own field and he wants to see a quota system introduced that will give under-40s a chance to run top arts events.

''We are only going to overcome our economic crisis by making better use of younger people,'' Corno said, referring to a decade of under-achievement by Italy's hidebound economy.

MAMMA MIA

Part of the problem is that many Italians seem in no hurry to grow up and the country promotes a culture that encourages people to look young but act staid.

A survey last year by British and US researchers said 82 percent of Italian men aged between 18 and 30 live with their parents against 43 per cent in the United States, mainly because they liked being spoilt by their doting mammas and papas.

A separate survey by national statistics office ISTAT found that Italian men became fathers at a later age than anywhere else in Europe, with Italian women the second oldest mothers.

Such slow progress towards assuming personal responsibility inevitably delays assuming public responsibility.

''Here it is considered a success if you manage to keep children at home until they are over 30. In other countries this is seen as a failure,'' said centre-left leader Francesco Rutelli, explaining why the elderly held such sway in Italy.

Many young people say they don't get ahead quickly because Italy rewards seniority more than initiative.

The Glocus survey backs this up. ''Overall, Italian culture is little aimed at meritocracy,'' it said.

In a bid to boost enterprise, some big Italian companies are looking to inject fresh life into their management ranks.

When Sergio Marchionne, 53, took over as CEO of troubled carmaker Fiat in 2004 he swept out layers of long-time white collar workers and instead promoted 30 and 40-year-olds, betting their dynamism would make up for a relative lack of experience.

The mood at Italy's flagship industrial group has bucked up, its image is improving and it returned a quarterly trading profit at the end of 2005 for the first time in five years.

It's the same story at Rome bank Capitalia, which caused a stir in 2003 when it appointed 38-year-old Matteo Arpe as its CEO. Since then, Arpe has embarked on a massive rejuvenation of the bank, increasing its share price six-fold in four years.

But such an influx of youth looks unlikely in politics.

Neither Berlusconi nor Prodi discuss retirement and there are growing cross-party calls for Ciampi to receive a second term as president, which would take him to 92, as the establishment struggles to come up with a viable alternative.

''Italian politicians are all emperors who have created a monarchical system within their own blocs, where powers are inherited and consensus is

REUTERS