ANALYSTS' VIEW: Berlusconi attack to boost his popularity

ROME (Reuters) - The assault on Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will likely boost his popularity and strengthen his hand within his center-right coalition, commentators said on Monday.

Some said the attack on Sunday in Milan would result in a "sympathy factor" for Berlusconi, whose high ratings have been hit by accusations of corruption and sex scandals.

Here are some comments from analysts in Italy asked by Reuters for their opinion:

Massimo Franco, political commentator for Italy's largest mainstream daily newspaper, Corriere della Sera:

"This incident will have very important political implications and I think two things will result from it. I expect his ratings to go up in the eyes of public opinion, the so-called sympathy factor. Nearly everyone agrees that it was bad for him and the country's image for him to be physically attacked.

"Secondly, this will also make it harder for anyone in the center-right to aspire to take his place anytime soon. The implication is that he is irreplaceable for the time being."

Emilio Iodice, Rector of the John Felice Rome Center of Chicago's Loyola University:

"I definitely think Berlusconi's star will rise on all fronts after this. I think that what has been developing in Italian politics is a period of catharsis where these kinds of problems of high political tensions seem to foster only more problems.

"We have been going through a period where, instead of coming to grips with the difficult problems the country is facing, politics is developing a methodology of violent rhetoric. Hopefully, this incident could lead to some kind of pacification."

Professor James Walston, head of the Political Science department at the American University of Rome:

"Physical violence, individual violence is very much taboo and this was broken, and broken very bloodily in yesterday's incident. So there is a huge amount of sympathy for him. There is also a condemnation of violence because of the past history of violence in Italy.

But the big problem, the big question which is much more difficult to answer is whether this sympathy will then translate into legislation. Berlusconi has been suggesting that he wants to put through major constitutional changes, legal changes. Changes that would give the executive much more power and which would make him, the prime minister, immune from prosecution, to stop the prosecution which is going on. What I cannot say at the moment is whether the sympathy will translate into legislation on the books in the next few months."