Irish Examiner view: A rotten political legacy left behind
It was not all just perma-tan and advanced dentistry that gave Berlusconi his popularity; he was charismatic and self-made. He made his political bow in 1993, and by the following year was prime minister for the first time. Picture: Dan Kitwood/PA
The death yesterday of former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, leaves his country not with a legacy of the tawdry ‘bunga bunga’ sex parties in his Milan mansion, or the corruption with which he was so often accused, but the creation of a global template for populist right-wing politics.
Although a most controversial figure throughout his political life, Berlusconi also mastered the art of political survival and, despite the maelstrom which has been Italian politics since the Second World War, he weathered enough storms to become his country’s longest-serving post-war leader.
It was not all just perma-tan and advanced dentistry that gave Berlusconi his popularity; he was charismatic and self-made. He made his political bow in 1993, and by the following year was prime minister for the first time.
A former cruise ship crooner, he built a substantial fortune in property development in Milan before establishing a massive media and television empire — Fininvest — and used the leverage it provided to launch his political career.
Allegations of corruption were never far from the leader of the Forza Italia party, and he faced prosecution on more than 30 occasions with the charges levelled against him including embezzlement, bribery, and false accounting. Creative legislation, changing the laws under which he had been charged saved him from prosecution more than once.
In 2013, however, the law did catch up with him, and he was convicted of tax fraud and given a four-year jail term. This he avoided because three years were pardoned, and he served only a year of community service. There was also a six-year ban from legislative office meted out, but he bounced back in 2019 by being elected an MEP.
His enforced absence had seen Italian politics change, and his voters mainly backed Matteo Salvini’s Lega movement, although he did return to the national picture last year with Forza entering an uneasy coalition with Georgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy and Salvini’s Lega.
If legal jeopardy had characterised his early career, one constant in the Berlusconi playbook was his ability to offend, and shortly after Forza came back to government, he described Meloni as “patronising, overbearing, arrogant, and offensive”.
He also claimed a deep friendship with Russian leader Vladimir Putin and blamed Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy for the devastation of his own country.
His was the prototype for many of the right-wing populists that have emerged in global politics subsequently — Donald Trump and Boris Johnson among them, one more scandal-ridden than the other. His legacy will be that of daring to take on political elites and shattering political norms by taking advantage of people’s disenchantment.
But it is a rotten legacy, and unfortunately one the world will be living with for some considerable time.
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