Silvio Berlusconi Said to Be Plotting a Political Comeback ROME - The last time Silvio Berlusconi grabbed so much media attention, it was because he had resigned as prime minister. Not eight months later, the front pages of Italian newspapers are emblazoned with headlines that Mr. Berlusconi is back and ready to take another stab at Italy's top elected position. By popular demand, no less. According to news reports on Thursday, Mr. Berlusconi, 75, said that he had been persuaded to jump back into the political fray at the urging of Italy's business and entrepreneurial community. Many people ask President Berlusconi to run for election. I am among them," Angelino Alfano wrote Wednesday on Twitter, referring to Mr. Berlusconi as head of the Peoples of Liberty party. Though Mr. Berlusconi's designated heir, Mr. Alfano, 41, was seemingly unruffled to have been unceremoniously shoved aside by his aging mentor. If he decides to do so, we will all be by his side. A member of Mr. Berlusconi's staff, who was not authorized to speak publicly for attribution, played down the speculation, but did not dismiss it. "Right now, there's no election, no campaign to run in, but what's true is that he's not retired, he's still in politics, he hasn't given up," the staff member said. It's impossible to say what he's running for, because that will depend on the political situation and the various alliances that might be formed, it's not the time to give details. "But he thinks it is necessary to change and reform the institutional architecture of Italy, to allow the next government to do its job," he said. When Mr. Berlusconi resigned on Nov. 12, a victim of Italy's political and economic instability and of personal weaknesses that tainted his premiership with scandal, the popular backlash was such that a political recovery seemed wishful, at best. But the three-time prime minister and billionaire media tycoon has dodged dozens of court cases on a host of criminal charges and mastered more than one comeback. And he is closely attuned to the changing popular mood here, which has decidedly soured after eight months of a government of technocrats led by Prime Minister Mario Monti that has left Italians feeling impoverished without any gains in their sense of security about the country's economic future. This month, borrowing costs on Italian bonds have almost returned to the unsustainable levels they were at when Mr. Berlusconi resigned. Recent polls, which have punished Italian political parties in general, suggest that with Mr. Alfano at the helm, and Mr. Berlusconi out of the picture, the Peoples of Liberty party barely garners 10 percent of the vote. But a Berlusconi-Alfano ticket leading a renewed - and younger - party leadership with a distinctive message could attract some 28 percent of the voters, according to Euromedia Research, which has been monitoring voting preferences since February. Mr. Monti, who has grudging bipartisan support, is expected to remain in power until elections next spring. On Tuesday, he ruled out staying in the government after the 2013 elections. But he is a senator for life, and noted that he would continue to have a role in Parliament. Any future political developments will involve an unknown variable: a new electoral law. Under the current system, party leaders pick members of Parliament to fill the seats apportioned to the parties by a general vote. Parliament is discussing drafting a new one to allow voters to directly choose candidates, making politicians more accountable to their constituents. The new law is also expected to avert having different majorities in the two houses of Parliament, a situation that can arise now because of the way seats are allocated. Since leaving the prime minister's office last year, Mr. Berlusconi never entirely left the political stage, weighing in periodically with suggestions that Italy - or Germany - leave the euro zone, or start printing its own money, ideas that he later admitted were said in jest. Some commentators noted that Italy had to move forward, and not back to a past that began 18 years ago, when Mr. Berlusconi first ran for office, and won. "The ideas of Berlusconi are the same as 20 years ago, including battling communists, now impossible to find, and passing the legendary liberal reforms," wrote columnist Curzio Maltese in Rome daily La Repubblica. They're still waiting to be passed after the longest and most stable period of government of Republican history. Others were more humdrum. The real surprise "was that there was surprise about the news that he would run again," wrote Michele Brambilla, in a front-page editorial in Turin daily La Stampa. That a man like Mr. Berlusconi "could be content to be the wise old man of the party and accept the idea that someone could do better than him, was just not credible."