Checkered and colourful, Berlusconi created a template for populists

ROME — Silvio Berlusconi, the colourful Italian tycoon and four-time premier whose unlikely profession supplied a template for Donald Trump and different populist political outsiders all over the world, died Monday on the age of 86, a watershed second in Italian political historical past that elicited reactions from world leaders as different as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Pope Francis.

Mr. Berlusconi courted authorized and private controversy his whole skilled life, starting from bragging about “bunga bunga” intercourse events to being indicted on dozens of expenses starting from bribery to defamation and from cash laundering to affect peddling.

A billionaire businessman who delighted in outraging Italy‘s conventional political elite, Mr. Berlusconi additionally repeatedly defended figures together with strongman leaders resembling Benito Mussolini and Moammar Gadhafi and as soon as referred to as himself “the Jesus Christ of politics.”

He additionally complimented then-President Barack Obama on his “tan,” and he deflected expenses of paying an underage woman for intercourse by declaring that it was “better to like beautiful girls than to be gay.”

But snickering and irreverence apart, the Milan native was additionally a towering determine — each influential and polarizing — who reshaped the Italian media and political panorama in his picture. His enterprise empire in time would come with tv networks, newspapers, actual property, funding firms and the fabled AC Milan soccer group.

“Berlusconi transformed Italian media by providing the first national alternative to the state broadcaster with his more entertaining rival Mediaset,” Riccardo Puglisi, a professor of public economics on the University of Pavia in Italy, informed the Washington Times. “In politics, he was there after a collapse of the old political order to help form a two-coalition system that survives to this day.”

Mr. Berlusconi was born into modest circumstances in Milan, promoting vacuum cleaners door to door and dealing as a crooner on cruise ships. Somehow — mob ties had been alleged however by no means confirmed — he quickly prospered at property improvement and from there he created Mediaset, an organization that made him one of many richest individuals in Europe.

He helped reverse AC Milan’s fortune beginning within the Eighties, after which, when Italy’s political institution collapsed amid corruption scandals within the early Nineties, Mr. Berlusconi stepped in to change into one of many world’s first superstar politicians. The political occasion he created, Forza Italia, took its title from a well-liked chant from soccer video games.

He had 4 stints as premier between 1994 and 2011, when he resigned for the final time amid private scandal and hovering authorities borrowing prices. But he remained engaged in politics till the tip, holding a Senate seat till his loss of life, whereas the center-right Forza Italia is a key junior member of conservative Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni governing coalition. Even as his leukemia worsened, Mr. Berlusconi produced an brisk tackle at a celebration convention by way of video name in late May, and was whipping up assist amongst his followers on social media till per week earlier than his demise.

In a European Union that has strongly backed Ukraine in its warfare with Russia, Mr. Berlusconi was essentially the most high-profile political chief to proceed to assist Mr. Putin. The two males vacationed collectively a number of occasions in Italy and Russia, and he stored up his friendship with the Russian chief even after the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

“I have always sincerely admired his wisdom, his ability to make balanced, far-sighted decisions even in the most difficult situations,” Mr. Putin mentioned within the telegram launched by the Kremlin Monday. “During each of our meetings, I was literally charged with his incredible vitality, optimism and sense of humor.”

Mr. Berlusconi will probably be honored with a state funeral on Wednesday on the Duomo Cathedral in Milan. The longer-term impression of his absence from the fragile political scene right here is topic of main dialogue. It is unsure whether or not Forza Italia, a key junior accomplice of the governing coalition, will dissolve with out Mr. Berlusconi’s management and if that occurs it might impression the soundness of the Meloni authorities.

Mr. Berlusconi was first married in 1965 to Carla Dall’Oglio, making ready his youngsters to take maintain prime positions in his enterprise empire. He married his second spouse, Veronica Lario, in 1990, and so they had three youngsters, Barbara, Eleonora and Luigi. They additionally divorced, and on the time of his loss of life he was in a relationship with Marta Fascina, 33, who was elected to parliament final yr for his occasion.

Francesco Sisci, a world affairs professional with Rome’s LUISS University, mentioned Mr. Berlusconi’s loss of life might additionally have an effect on the warfare in Ukraine.

“Putin has lost his most reliable ally not only in Italy but in Europe at a time when Ukraine is in the midst of its counter-offensive,” Mr. Sisci mentioned in an interview, noting that Mr. Berlusconi helped pull the plug on the earlier Italian authorities of Prime Minister Mario Draghi, certainly one of Ukraine’s earliest supporters. “This could be a blow, a serious blow, for Putin.”