Italy’s scandal-hit former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi dies at 86

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Italy’s scandal-hit former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi dies at 86

Monday June 12 2023

Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi died on June 12, 2023 aged 86. PHOTO | AFP

Silvio Berlusconi, who dominated Italian public life for many years as a billionaire media mogul, businessman and prime minister, has died aged 86.

The larger-than-life character, who as soon as in contrast himself to Jesus, was Italy’s longest serving premier however was additionally affected by scandal.

Regardless of being recognized with leukaemia, he was energetic in politics to the top as a senator and associate in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s rightwing authorities.

Berlusconi additionally wielded enormous affect via his tv and newspaper pursuits — he successfully invented industrial TV in Italy — his possession of AC Milan soccer membership, and his sheer wealth, as Italy’s richest individual for a decade.

Lengthy earlier than Donald Trump parlayed his enterprise success right into a White Home bid, Berlusconi charmed tens of millions of Italians by presenting himself as a self-made man who loved life and spoke his thoughts, even to the extent of insulting fellow leaders.

To his critics, nevertheless, the right-winger was a tax-evading playboy who used his huge media empire to additional his political profession, after which exploited his energy to guard his enterprise pursuits.

He spent a lot of his life embroiled in authorized motion, and the circumstances round his infamous “Bunga Bunga” intercourse events, attended by younger women together with underage escorts, had been solely wrapped up in February 2023.

Regardless of remaining president of his Forza Italia occasion, a junior associate in Meloni’s coalition, he had largely retired from public view in current months.

Well being issues

He suffered rising well being issues — though he maintained his pleasure in his look, all the time neatly dressed, his slicked-back hair by no means displaying the slightest hint of gray.

Berlusconi was hospitalised for 11 days in September 2020 after contracting coronavirus, describing it as “maybe probably the most tough ordeal of my life”. 

In April 2023, medical doctors revealed he was in intensive care affected by leukaemia and a lung an infection.

Berlusconi burst onto the political scene within the early Nineteen Nineties, after build up a media and actual property enterprise, the place he was seen as a breath of recent air after a interval of corruption and scandal.

Pitching himself as a contemporary Italian success story, and backed by his TV stations and newspapers, he secured his first election victory in 1994 together with his new motion, Forza Italia (Go Italy!), named after a soccer chant.

He lasted as prime minister for under 9 months, however bounced again with one other election win in 2001 after a populist marketing campaign promising jobs and financial development, signing a “Contract with Italians” dwell on tv. 

He served till 2006, and returned once more as prime minister between 2008 and 2011, making him the longest-serving premier in Italy’s post-war historical past.

He was compelled to stop as debt-laden Italy — the eurozone’s third largest financial system — got here beneath intense strain in the course of the monetary disaster. 

The tenure of the person dubbed “Il Cavaliere” (The Knight) divided Italians, as a lot as over his insurance policies — together with his controversial resolution to affix the US-led invasion of Iraq — as his complete lifestyle.

All through his time in workplace, prosecutors snapped at his heels, whilst his supporters in parliament handed legal guidelines to protect him and his allies.

Regardless of a number of courtroom circumstances — he claimed in 2021 he had gone via 86 trials — he by no means spent any time behind bars and efficiently appealed convictions for fraud and corruption early in his political profession.

In 2013, Berlusconi acquired a definitive conviction for tax fraud, which noticed him perform group service in a care house for victims of Alzheimer’s.

He was additionally lengthy suspected of hyperlinks to the mafia, however strongly denied it.

‘Bunga Bunga’ shame

On the world stage, Berlusconi was recognized for his friendships with the likes of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and Russian President Vladimir Putin — the latter of whom he controversially defended following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

He had no time for conventional diplomacy, as soon as likening a German European MP to a Nazi and describing US President Barack Obama as “suntanned”.

His picture was additional tarnished when lurid particulars emerged of his intercourse events at his villa close to Milan with its non-public disco, throughout a vastly embarrassing trial involving a 17-year-old nightclub dancer.

Berlusconi was sentenced to seven years in jail in 2013 for paying for intercourse with Karima El-Mahroug, often called “Ruby the Coronary heart Stealer” — however this was later overturned after the decide stated there was affordable doubt that he knew she was underage.

He then stood accused of bribing witnesses to lie about his events, which he all the time insisted had been elegant dinners. He was acquitted in three associated trials.

A relationship with one other teenager led to the top of his second marriage with former actress Veronica Lario, who left him in 2009 over his “cavorting with minors”.

In March 2022, he held a weird pretend wedding ceremony together with his girlfriend Marta Fascina, then 32.

Soccer glory

Berlusconi was born in 1936 in Milan to a financial institution worker father and a housewife mom. He went on to father 5 kids, all concerned within the working of his enterprise empire. 

As a younger man, he was fast to understand his abilities as an entertainer.

An enormous fan of Nat King Cole, he performed double bass in a band and made membership audiences snigger with jokes throughout breaks from his regulation research on the College of Milan.

As a scholar, he labored briefly as a cruise ship singer earlier than launching a profitable profession within the booming development sector in his 20s, which delivered his first fortune.

These funds had been used to construct an enormous conglomerate spanning retailers, cinemas, publishers, newspapers and cable tv, the place he broke new floor with industrial programmes crammed with scantily clad girls.

Crucially for his public persona, his empire additionally included soccer, considered one of Italy’s nice passions.

In addition to offering cash for AC Milan, he often delivered dressing room and coaching floor pep talks throughout a interval wherein the membership grew to become one of many world’s most celebrated and trophied success tales. 

5 of AC Milan’s seven European Cup/Champions League triumphs had been achieved beneath Berlusconi’s 31-year possession.

He bought the membership in 2017 after years of lacklustre performances, and in 2018 purchased Monza, then in Italy’s third tier.