The former Italian Prime Minister, Silivio Berlusconi, died on Monday June 12, 2023. The 86-year-old man had been going back and forth to the hospital in recent months and had been diagnosed with cancer last April.
Silvio Berlusconi is gone. The former Italian Prime Minister died at the age of 86 on Monday June 12, 2023. The man had been in fragile health for several months and had been hospitalized in Milan on Friday June 9 for check-ups. The businessman-turned-politician began chemotherapy last April after being diagnosed with chronic leukemia.
Despite the disturbing news and an emergency hospitalization that occurred on April 5, Silvio Berlusconi and his relatives had been deceiving since the beginning of April. The strong man of the Italian right promised himself to get out of it, drawing a parallel with his political career, which lasted thirty years, as much as with his previous health problems. “It’s hard but I’ll get through it again this time. I managed to get back on track, even in difficult and delicate situations”. A longevity which seemed foolproof and which earned him the nickname “the immortal”.
The state of Silvio Berlusconi had already agitated the press on April 5, during an emergency hospitalization of the former Italian minister in Milan. If many relatives had tried to reassure and hide the evil that struck the founder of the right-wing Forza Italia party, including Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani who had underlined the “stable state” of the politician, on April 7 the doctors of Silvio Berlsuconi who publicized “chronic myelomonocytic leukemia which he has suffered from for some time”. A relative of Berlusconi, Vittorio Sgarbi, Deputy Minister of Culture, reacted to this announcement: “We are all very concerned. I hope he will have the strength to resist this last blow which has a sinister name, the leukemia”.
Since then, the former Italian minister had been undergoing chemotherapy to try to beat this serious form of cancer and said himself to be in good shape. Friday, June 9, Silivio Berlusconi had just been hospitalized for check-ups related to his illness. If leukemia is a serious disease, the health of the Cavaliere had already been put to the test, in particular by prostate cancer. In recent years, the health of Silvio Berlusconi had not been spared since in 2016, at the age of 79, the politician had an open heart operation. And since 2020 and a Covid-19 infection which had led to bilateral pneumonia, the Italian had been going back and forth to the hospital. In January 2022, it was a serious urinary tract infection that prompted his doctors to have him undergo a series of heavy treatments. After almost 30 years of political career, “the caiman” hardly appeared in public anymore because of these many health concerns.
The death of Silvio Berlusconi has sparked many reactions from both the right, of which he was a major figure, and the left. “Many loved him, many hated him: everyone today must recognize that his impact on political life, but also economic, sports and television has been unprecedented,” said Matteo Renzi, the former Prime Minister. Italian (from 2014 to 2016) member of the Democratic Party and opponent of the Milanese. Giorgia Meloni, current head of the Italian government who counted Silvio Berlusconi among her allies, posted a video on Twitter in which she salutes “one of the most influential men in the history of Italy”. In France, the reaction was rarer and especially observed on the side of the right, Eric Ciotti (Les Républicains) and Jordan Bardella (National Rally) both underlined a man who marked his time.
Silvio Berlusconi quickly showed his talents as a businessman, first in the real estate sector and then by creating a huge financial group, Fininvest, in 1977. He then built a veritable media empire and invested in many sectors ( banking, insurance, football, distribution) Fininvest remains one of the largest financial holding companies and owns television channels with the Médiaset group, several newspapers published by Mondadori, but also the main Italian advertising company.
It was in 1994 that he decided to get into politics by creating the Forza Italia party. The latter wasted no time in allying himself with right-wing and far-right parties. Leading this coalition, which won the legislative elections, Berlusconi found himself President of the Council, a position from which he had to resign in December 1994. However, the man did not let go and, despite the convictions for corruption, he always tried to strengthen his left. His new right-wing coalition, the House of Liberties, won the 2001 legislative elections and brought him to power in June. The ultra-liberal policy that he leads is still tainted by the legal proceedings against Fininvest. After a temporary resignation, he formed a new government but lost the 2006 parliamentary elections, against Romano Prodi (left). He returned to power once again in 2008. A new scandal, the “Rubygate” pushed him aside once again in 2011. However, his influence remains major in Italian political life since his party is now a member of the coalition at the head of Italy.
The court cases that have enamelled the political career and reputation of Silvio Berlusconi are numerous. The politician has been in turn suspected or accused of corruption, tax evasion, bribery of witnesses or even paid sex with minors… But between the classifications without follow-up and the dismissals, the former minister is often slipped through the cracks. And when justice managed to hold him responsible, it was without counting on the acquittals pronounced either thanks to the modification of the laws that he himself had passed.
Among the most important scandals in which politics has been involved are Rubygate and the existence of bunga-bunga parties. In this case, dating from 2010, the politician was accused of inciting a minor to prostitution, of abuse of power for having released the same minor arrested by the police and of having had sexual relations with minors during bunga-bunga party. These parties which were held in the villa of Arcore, near Milan, of Silvio Berlusconi brought together many young girls who stripped naked and gave “physical pleasures” to the politician against money, according to the declarations of the witness and victim Ruby reported in Le Parisien. During the trial in 2013, Silvio Berlusconi was sentenced for incitement to prostitution of minors and abuse of power, to seven years in prison as well as a sentence of ineligibility for life. Only these sentences had been suspended by the Milan Court of Appeal which had acquitted the politician in 2014.
The only time Silvio Berlusconi was sentenced was for a tax evasion case involving the company Médiaset. However, this single condemnation is worth to the immortal to lose his title of Cavaliere.
