Silvio Berlusconi, who served as Italy’s prime minister three times and was a media mogul embroiled in numerous scandals, has died at the age of 86 from leukaemia, his spokesman told AFP.
Nicknamed “the immortal” because of his longevity in politics, the senator and businessman had been admitted to a Milan hospital last Friday. Considered one of Italy’s wealthiest men, coming in at No. 118 on the list of the world’s richest people in 2011, Berlusconi was a prominent communicator and fervent anti-communist, loved and hated with equal intensity.
As a bold and innovative entrepreneur, Berlusconi invented a unique and imitated commercial television format in the 1980s. However, his last years were marked by his fragile health, which led him to spend periods in the San Raffaele hospital in Milan, his hometown.
Throughout his political and business career, Berlusconi weathered various turbulences. He won three elections and led one of the longest post-war governments. In April, his doctors revealed he was suffering from chronic leukemia after being hospitalized for breathing problems.
For decades, Berlusconi maintained his aura thanks to his outgoing personality and dissolute life, which led him on several occasions to face accusations of corruption, witness buying and tax fraud. Known for his infamous “bunga bunga” and vulgar jokes, including at international meetings, Berlusconi became a leading figure abroad and a symbol of a rapidly growing Italy.
Berlusconi served as prime minister for a total of nine years, from 1994 to 2011, and accumulated immense wealth in the 80s and 90s. Over time, the party he founded, Forza Italia, experienced a gradual decline, going from 29.43% of the vote in the 2001 legislative elections to 8% in 2022.
For years, the tycoon was embroiled in legal disputes due to his controversial erotic parties during his tenure as prime minister, in which a minor of Moroccan origin known as “Ruby robacorazones” participated, whom he presented as the niece of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
This scandal, also known as “Rubygate”, generated great interest both inside and outside Italy and led to Berlusconi facing three trials. Although he was acquitted of the crime of prostitution of a minor, he was prosecuted for bribing the witnesses in that case, mostly models and prostitutes, which damaged his image.
Berlusconi, who was decorated as a “Knight of Labor” (“Cavaliere del Lavoro”) at age 41, lost that title after being sentenced in 2013 to four years in prison for tax fraud at his Mediaset company. As a result, he was expelled from the Senate after having been present in parliament for twenty years continuously.
Father of five children from two marriages and grandfather on several occasions, Silvio Berlusconi leaves no political heirs, but a considerable economic legacy after the distribution of his immense patrimony.