Four-time Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has profoundly changed Italian television and shaped the country’s politics.

Silvio Berlusconi has passed away. He was 86 years old. In March, the former Italian Prime Minister was diagnosed with chronic myelomonocytic leukemia. Mr Berlusconi returned to San Raffaele Hospital on March 9th. A 45-day hospital stay followed, which ended a few weeks ago.

Silvio Berlusconi was born in Milan on September 29, 1936 and entered politics in 1993, the year of his famous “descent from hell”. The following year his party defied predictions by the main national newspapers that Forza Italywon the elections against Umberto Bossi’s Lega Nord in the northern regions and Gianfranco Fini’s MSI in the rest of Italy.

His candidacy profoundly shaped the customs of Italian politics, prompting Parliament to fill certain loopholes in its rules. During the final months of the election campaign, some of the most well-known faces of the Fininvest networks had announced their political support on television, sparking reactions that later led to the adoption of the rules governing the election conditions.

The son of a bank employee, he studied law and initially dealt with real estate, founding the company Cantieri Riuniti Milanesi SpA in 1961. Between 1969 and 1976 he directed the design and construction of two modern residential areas, Milano 2 and Milano 3. In the early 1980s he invested in television, taking over the Milano 2 channel. He made it the first alternative national commercial television station in the public service. This is how Canale 5 was born, to which Publitalia, his advertising agency, was added.

On May 10, 1994 he became President of the Council of Ministers. However, this will only last seven months. In December, the Lega Nord broke away from the majority and withdrew its support from the executive. This leads to the fall of the government and forces Berlusconi to resign in favor of the then President of the Republic, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro.

In the 1996 snap elections, Forza Italia was defeated by Ulivo, the centre-left coalition led by Romano Prodi. Berlusconi returned to government in 2001 as head of the House of Freedom. In addition to Forza Italia, this coalition also includes the main centre-right parties (including the Lega Nord). In 2006, L’Unione, the centre-left coalition still led by Prodi, won around 25,000 votes more than the centre-right coalition in the House of Representatives and around 500,000 fewer votes in the Senate. Thanks to the regional distribution system, it still won the majority. It was challenged in the Senate on January 24, 2008. He therefore resigned the same day and, after a series of consultations, led the country to new elections. Two years later, Berlusconi returned to the top of the executive branch and won the elections with the coalition of Il Popolo della Libertà, Lega Nord and Movimento per l’Autonomia, which received a relative majority of the votes and, according to current electoral law, an absolute majority in 2005 the elected.

In addition to his entrepreneurial and political careers, Berlusconi shaped the Italian landscape by being the subject of several court cases. in twenty-five years, 36 attempts are brought against him. Eleven of them ended in acquittal, ten were released, eight were statute-barred and two were granted amnesty.

Over the years, the Cavaliere has shaped Italian culture. His character is actually picked up in popular culture. We find it in the cinema, in music, but also in caricatures, writings and humorous skits.

After Mussolini, Silvio Berlusconi was the forerunner of today’s populism by interweaving politics and communication. 20 years before Donald Trump, he is an entrepreneur who manages to lead a national government. He managed to seduce the masses with simple formulas, condescending speeches and an ever-present sense of action.

Rolling Stone Italy

Translated by the editor