Ex-Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi Dies At 86; Italy Mourns
By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
ROME (Worthy News) – Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s flamboyant media mogul and politician who led the country three times as prime minister has died aged 86 after suffering from blood cancer, officials confirmed.
His television network Mediaset announced his death with a smiling photo of the man on its homepage and the headline: “Berlusconi is dead.”
He had been admitted to the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan on Friday, his second hospitalization in months for treatment of chronic leukemia.
He also suffered over the years from heart ailments, prostate cancer and was hospitalized for COVID-19 in 2020.
While the reign of one of Europe’s most controversial figures was marred by sex and corruption scandals, his personality struck a chord with the Italian electorate.
Nine years after he was banned from public office for tax fraud, he was back in parliament and elected to Italy’s Senate.
Italy’s defense minister, Guido Crosetto, said: “An era is over; an era is closing. I love him so very much.”
CONTROVERSIAL PARTIES
Critics remember him best for his gaffes, “bunga bunga” parties, and outsized ego, at one point letting host German Chancellor Angela Merkel wait while he made a cellphone call.
His most high-profile scandal was the alleged “bunga bunga” parties at his villa, attended by showgirls – a story which ended in a conviction for paying an underage prostitute for sex.
Amid the scandal, both Silvio Berlusconi and the legally underaged showgirl Karima El Mahroug denied they had sex.
It eventually emerged that in 2010, Berlusconi, while prime minister, had telephoned a police station and asked for the release of 17-year-old Karima “Ruby” El Mahroug, nicknamed Ruby Heart-Stealer, who was being held for theft. She was also a reported guest of the “bunga bunga” parties.
Italian media reported that the prime minister claimed the girl was the niece or granddaughter of the president of Egypt, and he was attempting to avoid a diplomatic incident.
Berlusconi was found guilty of paying her for sex and abusing his power in 2013 – but that ruling was overturned the following year.
He always rejected claims he had paid any woman for sex, saying to do so was “missing the pleasure of conquest.” But Berlusconi also admitted he was “no saint.”
ITALIAN FIGHTER
However, to many Italians, he was the personification of a self-made billionaire fighting for his heavily Catholic nation with Vatican City in the heart of Rome.
Silvio Berlusconi was seen as a “proto-Trumpian populist” who admired former President Donald J. Trump. Like Trump in the United States, Berlusconi said Italy needed a charismatic self-made businessman to “make it great again.”
He had dabbled in music and sung on cruise ships before building a vast personal fortune as a property developer in Milan and with his Fininvest media and TV empire.
Berlusconi eventually founded his conservative, pro-market Forza Italia party and entered politics in late 1993.
He became prime minister in January 1994, although his center-right coalition government lasted barely nine months before collapsing.
Critics said he devoted much of his first term to passing laws and promoting policies that would protect him from prosecution and boost the profits of his private businesses.
He lost the 1996 election to the center-left leader Romano Prodi but triumphed again in 2001. He became the first Italian politician in 50 years to complete a five-year mandate before losing again to Prodi in 2006.
NEW TERM
His third term began in 2008, after Prodi’s government collapsed, and ended with Berlusconi’s resignation in 2011.
In 2013, the only Berlusconi trial that ended with a final conviction was one for tax fraud, false accounting, and embezzlement tied to his media empire, which was then called Mediaset.
The top court confirmed Berlusconi’s sentence of four years imprisonment, three of which were covered by a pardon.
Due to his age, the former prime minister completed his one-year prison sentence as “community service” from 2014 to 2015.
But that seemed all forgotten when he triumphantly claimed a Senate seat just in time for his 86th birthday in September 2022.
But he again managed to stir controversy before his death with his criticism of Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, putting him at odds with Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni.
The man, who was several times married and divorced and now will be remembered in and outside Italy as both an admired and controversial personality who became part of many lives.
Berlusconi is survived by his 33-year-old girlfriend, Marta Fascina, two ex-wives, and five children, some of whom helped run his empire, recently estimated to be worth $7 billion.
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