Milan( Italy): Former Prime Minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi, who dominated Italian public life for decades as a billionaire media mogul, businessman died at the age of 86.
The larger-than-life character, who once compared himself to Jesus, was Italy’s longest serving premier but was also plagued by scandal.
Despite being diagnosed with leukaemia, he was active in politics to the end as a senator and partner in Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s rightwing government.
Berlusconi also wielded huge influence through his television and newspaper interests — he effectively invented commercial TV in Italy — his ownership of AC Milan football club, and his sheer wealth, as Italy’s richest person for a decade.
Long before Donald Trump parlayed his business success into a White House bid, Berlusconi charmed millions of Italians by presenting himself as a self-made man who enjoyed life and spoke his mind, even to the extent of insulting fellow leaders.
To his critics, however, the right-winger was a tax-evading playboy who used his vast media empire to further his political career, and then exploited his power to protect his business interests.
He spent much of his life embroiled in legal action, and the cases around his notorious “Bunga Bunga” sex parties, attended by young girls including underage escorts, were only wrapped up in February 2023.
Despite remaining president of his Forza Italia party, a junior partner in Meloni’s coalition, he had largely retired from public view in recent months.
He suffered increasing health problems — although he maintained his pride in his appearance, always smartly dressed, his slicked-back hair never showing the slightest trace of grey.
Berlusconi was hospitalised for 11 days in September 2020 after contracting coronavirus, describing it as “perhaps the most difficult ordeal of my life”.
In April 2023, doctors revealed he was in intensive care suffering from leukaemia and a lung infection.
Berlusconi burst onto the political scene in the early 1990s, after building up a media and real estate business, where he was viewed as a breath of fresh air after a period of corruption and scandal.
Pitching himself as a modern Italian success story, and backed by his TV stations and newspapers, he secured his first election victory in 1994 with his new movement, Forza Italia (Go Italy!), named after a football chant.
He lasted as prime minister for only nine months, but bounced back with another election win in 2001 after a populist campaign promising jobs and economic growth, signing a “Contract with Italians” live on television.
He served until 2006, and returned again as prime minister between 2008 and 2011, making him the longest-serving premier in Italy’s post-war history.
He was forced to quit as debt-laden Italy — the eurozone’s third largest economy — came under intense pressure during the financial crisis.
