Silvio Berlusconi used his television networks and immense wealth to launch his long political career, inspiring both loyalty and loathing.
FILE: Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's former prime minister, reacts after casting his vote in the referendum on constitutional reform at a polling station in Rome, Italy in 2016. Silvio Berlusconi, the boastful billionaire media mogul who was Italy’s longest-serving premier despite scandals over his sex-fueled parties and allegations of corruption, died Monday. He was 86.
His center-right Forza Italia political party was a junior partner in the government of current Premier Giorgia Meloni, a far-right leader who came to power last year, although he held no position. Berlusconi often boasted of his libido and entertained friends and world leaders at so-called "bunga bunga" parties his villas. "I love life! I love women!" he said in 2010.
Investigations targeted his parties or his businesses, which included the soccer team AC Milan, the country’s three biggest private TV networks, magazines and a daily newspaper, and advertising and film companies. Criminal cases either ended in dismissals in Italy’s slow-moving justice system, or he won on appeals.
When corruption scandals of the 1990s decimated the political establishment, Berlusconi founded Forza Italia in 1994 — its name comes from a soccer cheer, "Let’s go, Italy." His first government collapsed after eight months when an ally who led an anti-immigrant party yanked support. But aided by an aggressive campaign, Berlusconi swept to victory in 2001 and was in power for five years, setting a record for government longevity in Italy.
Berlusconi saw himself as Italy’s savior from what he described as the Communist menace, years after the Berlin Wall fell. He portrayed himself as the target of a judiciary he said was filled with leftist sympathizers. But in 2006, as Italy was ridiculed as "the sick man of Europe," with its economy mired in zero growth and its budget deficit rising, Berlusconi narrowly lost the general election to center-left leader Romano Prodi.
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