Silvio Berlusconi, the tycoon who changed the way of doing politics before Trump

The three times Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconiwho died today at the age of 86, has been one of the most important figures in public life in Italy of the last half century: tycoon of a media empire, he changed the way of doing politics and became the precursor of populism embodied by donald trump.

A successful businessman and one of the richest men in Italy, he was an incombustible political animal who took advantage of the void left by the disappearance of the Christian Democracy and, with a winning style “self-made” he won the elections almost immediately and remained in the front line from 1994 until the end of his life.

At the head of the Italian Government on three occasions (1994-1995, 2001-2006 and 2008-2011) and, despite falling out of favor in 2011, after being disqualified due to his conviction for tax fraud, Berlusconi back to Parliament as a senator in 2022, when his party joined the coalition government of the far-right Giorgia Meloni.

He was involved in numerous trials for corruption and abuse of power: the most notorious scandal was the so-called “ruby case”, nickname of the young Moroccan with whom Berlusconi allegedly had sexual relations when she was a minor, although he was also accused of having negotiated with the Sicilian mafia (Cosa Nostra) in the 1990s. They all ended in acquittal or in the statute of limitations.

READ ALSO: Silvio Berlusconi: judicial vicissitudes, numerous trials and some convictions

FROM BUILDER TO OWNER OF A MEDIA EMPIRE

Berlusconi (Milan, 1936), the son of a middle-class banker who began singing on cruise ships and selling vacuum cleaners, began a meteoric business career by founding his first construction company at the age of 25Cantieri Riuniti Milanese.

In the 1970s, he started up a cable television station that broadcast in one of the Milanese neighborhoods that he himself had built, he took over part of the capital of the newspaper “Il Giornale” and created television “Channel 5”.

That 1978 he founded fininvestthe holding company of the Berlusconi family that today controls an empire formed among others by the publishing house mondadorithe film production company Medusa and the audiovisual group mediaset.

Soccer fan, he owned the AC Milan from the 1970s until 2017, when he sold it to a Chinese consortium and later bought the Monzaa small team that led the elite of the A series.

KNOW MORE: Berlusconi will have a state funeral on Wednesday in Milan’s cathedral

HIS ENTRY INTO POLITICS

At the height of his business career, Berlusconi announced in 1994 in a televised speech his famous: “I enter the field” of game.

Thus began his political career with the founding of Forza Italya liberal and centrist party that was showing the first signs of populism and that promised to fill the void in a country disenchanted by politicians after the anti-corruption operation “Clean hands”.

Berlusconi presented himself as the dam against communism and promised to lead the country as he had managed his companies. And he convinced: that same year he won the elections and became head of a government in coalition with the Northern Leaguethen headed by its founder Umberto Bossi.

That cabinet did not last long. Haunted by justice and the incessant attacks by the opposition, he saw how in December of that year bossy withdrew his support and forced him to resign.

He became prime minister again in 2001, with the conservative coalition House of Libertieswith which he governed for five years and turned that Executive into one of the most durable in the history of the country.

During the electoral campaign, he surprised by signing a contract with the Italians in one of the most followed television programs in the country to, among other things, abolish the tax on the first house: with this populist promise “The alligator”, as the filmmaker nicknamed him Nanni Moretti in one of his films, “devoured” to his adversary.

In 2006, he tried to revalidate his mandate, but lost against Romano Prodi, although only two years later, at 71, he took advantage of the fall of the Government to become prime minister again, this time with the Freedom Town (with Forza Italy and the rightist National Alliance).

He again led the country in coalition with the Northern League until in 2011 the economic crisis and again the judicial scandals sank his Government and Mario Monti took over the leadership of a technical executive.

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THE DECLINE OF “EL CAIMAN”

Was his last legislaturealthough he never completely disappeared from the political scene.

His parties with women were famous, which earned him the opening of several lawsuits against him for abuse of power and incitement to the prostitution of minors and others for allegedly having bribed to the witnesses.

Married twice and father of five children, he had several partners up to the present martha fascinatesdeputy of Forza Italia 53 years younger than him and with whom he celebrated in 2022 a “fake wedding”.

Always controversial, it is remembered when he jokingly put “the horns” in a summit with the then Spanish Foreign Minister, Josep Pique; when she said that he envied the tanned skin of the former president of United States Barack Obama or that the dictator benito mussolini He “sent people on vacation” into exile.

In addition to his numerous sexist jokes, Berlusconi caused controversy because of his friendship with Vladimir Putinparticularly in their last months of life.

Source: Elcomercio

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I am Jack Morton and I work in 24 News Recorder. I mostly cover world news and I have also authored 24 news recorder. I find this work highly interesting and it allows me to keep up with current events happening around the world.