The largest news organization in Italy, Ansa, has reported that Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister, has passed away at age 86.
The media mogul, whose Forza Italia party is a junior partner in the current ruling coalition and who served as the leader of three Italian governments between 1994 and 2011, has been battling leukemia for some years.
One of Italy’s most charismatic leaders, Berlusconi returned to politics in 2017 despite a career marred by sex scandals, numerous accusations of corruption, and a tax fraud conviction.
He passed away at the San Raffaele hospital in Milan, where he had been treated for a lung infection brought on by chronic myelomonocytic leukemia for six weeks in the spring before being readmitted. Berlusconi, who was raised in a middle-class family and was born in Milan in 1936, started his business career in real estate before founding Mediaset, Italy’s biggest commercial broadcaster. Between 1986 and 2017, he was also the owner of the football team AC Milan.
In 1993, Forza Italia was established. After being elected as prime minister a year later without having previously held a position in government, Berlusconi served as president of Italy for the longest period of time since the Second World War from 2001 to 2006. In 2008, he came back to power, but a severe debt problem compelled him to step down in 2011.
After being found guilty of tax fraud in late 2012, Berlusconi completed part-time community service at a Milanese residential facility to complete his year-long sentence. In time for the 2018 general elections, where Forza Italia campaigned in partnership with the League and Brothers of Italy but fell short of the requisite 40% to govern, his ban on running for office was overturned.
The Brothers of Italy, a coalition led by Giorgia Meloni’s party, helped Berlusconi’s party retake power in general elections in October 2022. Berlusconi earned a seat in the European Parliament in 2019. Additionally, Berlusconi won a seat in the Senate. Berlusconi, known as Il Cavaliere (the knight), was sometimes seen as the “kingmaker” in Italian politics.
He underwent aortic valve replacement surgery in 2016 and was taken to the hospital with Covid in September 2020. He experienced what he called “the worst of my life” in terms of ongoing virus-related consequences.
Before dating MP for Forza Italia Marta Fascina, 33, with whom he had a “symbolic marriage” in March 2022, he was in a seven-year relationship with Francesca Pascale, 37, before getting married twice. There are five kids left behind by him.
