Silvio berlusconi born

The term is also used to refer to a certain laissez-faire vision supported by him, not in the economy and markets but in relation to politics. Berlusconi defined himself as moderate, [ ] liberal , and a supporter of free trade ; [ ] he was often also described as a populist or a conservative. Another feature of great importance was the emphasis on a "liberal revolution", summarised by the " Contract with the Italians " of Berlusconi's proposed reforms were added to the pillars of his " Contract with the Italians ", principally on the form of the Italian Constitution and the state, [ ] including the passage from a parliamentary system to a presidential republic , [ ] a higher election threshold , the abolition of the Italy's Senate of the Republic , a halving in the number of members of the country's Chamber of Deputies , the abolition of the provinces of Italy , and the reform of the judiciary, with separation of the careers between magistrates and magistrates's liability insurance , from Berlusconi considered impartial.

In , Berlusconi declared himself favourable to civil unions. A number of writers and political commentators considered Berlusconi's political success a precedent for the United States presidential election of real estate tycoon Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States, [ ] [ ] [ ] with most citing Berlusconi's panned prime ministerial tenure and therefore making the comparison in dismay.

Roger Cohen of The New York Times wrote: "Widely ridiculed, endlessly written about, long unscathed by his evident misogyny and diverse legal travails, Berlusconi proved a Teflon politician Nobody who knows Berlusconi and has watched the rise and rise of Donald Trump can fail to be struck by the parallels. Berlusconi was tried in Italian courts in several cases.

The outcome for six of those cases were politically altered to end with "no conviction", because of laws passed by Berlusconi's parliamentary majority shortening the time limit for prosecution of various offences and making false accounting illegal only if there is a specific damaged party reporting the fact to the authorities. Some of his attorneys are also members of parliament.

On 24 June , Berlusconi was found guilty of paying an underage prostitute for sex, and of abusing his powers in an ensuing cover up. He was sentenced to seven years in jail, and banned from public office for life. He was acquitted from the sex charges by the Italy appeals court on Friday, 18 July According to journalists Marco Travaglio and Enzo Biagi , Berlusconi entered politics to save his companies from bankruptcy and himself from convictions.

Berlusconi was investigated for forty different inquests in less than two years. Berlusconi's governments passed laws that shortened statutory terms for tax fraud. Romano Prodi, who defeated Berlusconi in , claimed that these were ad personam laws , meant to solve Berlusconi's problems and defend his interests. Berlusconi's extensive control over the media was widely criticised by some analysts, [ ] some press freedom organisations, and extensively by several Italian newspapers, national and private TV channels, by opposition leaders and in general members of opposition parties, who allege that Italy's media has limited freedom of expression.

However such coverage of the complaint in practice put under discussion the point of the complaint itself. Reporters Without Borders states that in , "The conflict of interests involving Prime Minister Berlusconi and his vast media empire was still not resolved and continued to threaten news diversity. Berlusconi said that they "use television as a criminal means of communication".

They lost their jobs as a result. The TV broadcasting of a satirical programme called RAIot was censored in November after the comedian Sabina Guzzanti made outspoken criticism of the Berlusconi media empire. Mediaset stated that it uses the same criteria as the public state-owned television RAI in assigning a proper visibility to all the most important political parties and movements the so-called 'Par Condicio' —which has been since often disproved.

On 24 June , Berlusconi during the Confindustria young members congress in Santa Margherita Ligure , Italy invited the advertisers to interrupt or boycott the advertising contracts with the magazines and newspapers published by Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso , [ ] in particular la Repubblica and the newsmagazine L'espresso , calling the publishing group "shameless", [ ] claiming that it was fuelling the economic crisis by discussing it extensively and accusing it of making a "subversive attack" against him.

He also added that Italy will probably be ranked last in the European Union in the upcoming edition of the RWB press freedom index. One of Berlusconi's strongest critics in the media outside Italy was the British weekly The Economist nicknamed "The Ecommunist" by Berlusconi, despite the magazine's association with market liberalism , [ ] which in its issue of 26 April carried a title on its front cover, 'Why Silvio Berlusconi is unfit to lead Italy'.

Via Fininvest , Berlusconi claimed the article contained "a series of old accusations" that was an "insult to truth and intelligence". This figure included stations he owned directly as well as those over which he had indirect control by dint of his position as prime minister and his ability to influence the choice of the management bodies of these stations.

The Economist also claimed that Berlusconi was corrupt and self-serving. Lane points out that Berlusconi had not defended himself in court against the main charges, but had relied upon political and legal manipulations, most notably by changing the statute of limitation to prevent charges being completed in the first place. To publicly prove the truth of the documented accusations contained in their articles, the magazine publicly challenged Berlusconi to sue The Economist for libel.

Berlusconi did so, [ ] losing versus The Economist , and being charged for all the trial costs on 5 September , when the Court in Milan issued a judgment rejecting all Berlusconi's claims and sentenced him to compensate for The Economist ' s legal expenses. In June , The Economist published a strong article dealing with Berlusconi, titled "The man who screwed an entire country".

On some occasions, laws passed by the Berlusconi administration have effectively delayed ongoing trials involving him.

Silvio berlusconi born

For example, the law reducing punishment for all cases of false accounting and the law on legitimate suspicion , which allowed defendants to request their cases to be moved to another court if they believe that the local judges are biased against them. Because of these legislative actions, political opponents accuse Berlusconi of passing these laws for the purpose of protecting himself from legal charges.

La Repubblica , for example, sustained that Berlusconi passed 17 different laws which have advantaged himself. Berlusconi and his government quarrelled with the Italian judiciary often. His administration attempted to pass a judicial reform intended to limit the flexibility of judges and magistrates in their decision-making. Critics said it would instead limit the magistracy's independence by de facto subjecting the judiciary to the executive's control.

The reform was met by almost unanimous dissent from the Italian judges, but was passed by the Italian parliament in December During the night hours between 5 and 6 March , the Berlusconi-led Italian government passed a decree "interpreting" the electoral law to let the PDL candidate run for governor in Lazio after she had failed to properly register for the elections.

The Italian Constitution states that electoral procedures can only be changed in Parliament, and must not be changed by governmental decree. Italy's president, whose endorsement of the decree was required by law, said that the measure taken by the government may not violate the Constitution. Berlusconi was never tried on charges relating to the Sicilian Mafia , although several Mafia turncoats have stated that Berlusconi had connections with the Sicilian criminal association.

The claims arise mostly from the hiring of Vittorio Mangano , who was accused of being a mafioso , as a gardener and stable-man at Berlusconi's Villa San Martino in Arcore , a small town near Milan. Marcello Dell'Utri even stated that the Mafia did not exist at all. In , Dell'Utri, co-founder of Forza Italia , was sentenced to nine years by a Palermo court on charge of "external association to the Mafia", [ ] [ ] a sentence describing Dell'Utri as a mediator between the economic interests of Berlusconi and members of the criminal organisation.

Berlusconi refused to comment on the sentence. In , Palermo's appeals court cut the sentence to seven years, but fully confirmed Dell'Utri's role as a link between Berlusconi and the Mafia until Cancemi disclosed that Fininvest, through Marcello Dell'Utri and mafioso Vittorio Mangano , had paid Cosa Nostra million lire between , and , of today's euro annually.

The alleged contacts, according to Cancemi, were to lead to legislation favourable to Cosa Nostra, in particular reforming the harsh bis prison regime. The underlying premise was that Cosa Nostra would support Berlusconi's Forza Italia party in return for political favours. They did not find evidence to corroborate Cancemi's allegations.

Similarly, a two-year investigation, also launched on evidence from Cancemi, into Berlusconi's alleged association with the Mafia was closed in Spatuzza testified that his boss Giuseppe Graviano had told him in , that Berlusconi was bargaining with the Mafia, concerning a political-electoral agreement between Cosa Nostra and Berlusconi's Forza Italia.

Dell'Utri was the intermediary, according to Spatuzza. Dell'Utri has dismissed Spatuzza's allegations as "nonsense". After the 11 September attacks in New York City, Berlusconi said: "We must be aware of the superiority of our civilisation, a system that has guaranteed well-being, respect for human rights and—in contrast with Islamic countries—respect for religious and political rights, a system that has as its value understanding of diversity and tolerance.

I am sorry that words that have been misunderstood have offended the sensitivity of my Arab and Muslim friends. After the family of Eluana Englaro who had been comatose for 17 years succeeded in having her right to die recognised by the judges and getting doctors to start the process of allowing her to die in the way established by the court, Berlusconi issued a decree to stop the doctor from letting her die.

Stating that, "This is murder. I would be failing to rescue her. I'm not a Pontius Pilate. During his long career as Prime Minister , Berlusconi had to deal with massive immigration from the coast of North Africa. To limit illegal immigration , the Berlusconi's government promulgated the Bossi-Fini law in If the illegal immigrant ships dock on Italian soil, the identification of those entitled to political asylum and the supply of medical treatment and care is undertaken by the marine police force.

The law had been criticised by the centre-left opposition [ ] [ ] and the European Parliament. Berlusconi developed a reputation for making insensitive remarks. This incident caused a brief cooling of Italy's relationship with Germany. Addressing traders at the New York Stock Exchange in September , Berlusconi listed a series of reasons to invest in Italy, the first of which was that "we have the most beautiful secretaries in the world".

This remark resulted in remonstration among female members of parliament, who took part in a one-day cross-party protest. In , during an interview with Nicholas Farrell, then editor of The Spectator , Berlusconi claimed that Mussolini "had been a benign dictator who did not murder opponents but sent them 'on holiday ' ". Berlusconi had made disparaging remarks about Finnish cuisine during negotiations to decide on the location of the European Food Safety Authority in He caused further offence in when he claimed that during the negotiations he had had to "dust off his playboy charms" to persuade the Finnish president, Tarja Halonen , to concede that the EFSA should be based in Parma instead of Finland, and compared Finnish smoked reindeer unfavourably to culatello.

Halonen took the incident in good humour, retorting that Berlusconi had "overestimated his persuasion skills". In March , Berlusconi alleged that Chinese communists under Mao Zedong had "boiled [children] to fertilise the fields". In the run-up to the Italian general election , Berlusconi was accused of sexism for saying that female politicians from the right were "more beautiful" and that "the left has no taste, even when it comes to women".

He also stated that he doubted that such a composition would be possible in Italy given the "prevalence of men" in Italian politics. Also in , Berlusconi caused controversy at a joint press conference with Russian president Vladimir Putin. When a journalist from the Russian paper Nezavisimaya Gazeta asked a question about Putin's personal relationships, Berlusconi made a gesture towards the journalist imitating a gunman shooting.

On 6 November , two days after Barack Obama was elected the first black US president, Berlusconi referred to Obama as "young, handsome and even tanned": [ ] [ ] [ ] On 26 March he said, "I'm paler [than Mr Obama], because it's been so long since I went sunbathing. He's more handsome, younger and taller. On 24 January , Berlusconi announced his aim to increase the number of military patrolling the Italian cities from 3, to 30, to crack down on what he called an "evil army" of criminals.

Responding to a female journalist who asked him if this tenfold increase in patrolling soldiers would be enough to secure Italian women from being raped, he said, "We could not field a big enough force to avoid this risk [of rape]. We would need as many soldiers as beautiful women and I don't think that would be possible, because our women are so beautiful.

Berlusconi retorted that he had merely wanted to compliment Italian women. Other critics accused him of creating a police state. Two days after the L'Aquila earthquake , Berlusconi suggested that people left homeless should view their experience as a camping weekend. In October , Berlusconi was chastised by the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano after he was filmed telling "offensive and deplorable jokes", including one whose punchline was similar to one of the gravest blasphemies in the Italian language.

It was also revealed he had made another antisemitic joke a few days previously. Berlusconi responded to the allegations by saying the jokes were "neither an offence nor a sin, but merely a laugh". On 1 November , after once again being accused of involvement in juvenile prostitution, he suggested that an audience at the Milan trade fair should stop reading newspapers: "Don't read newspapers any more because they deceive you.

I am a man who works hard all day long and if sometimes I look at some good-looking girl, it's better to be fond of pretty girls than to be gay. On 13 July , according to a leaked telephone surveillance transcript, Berlusconi told his presumed blackmailer Valter Lavitola: "The only thing they can say about me is that I screw around Now they're spying on me, controlling my phone calls.

I don't give a fuck. In a few months I'll be leaving this shit country that makes me sick. On 27 January , on the occasion of the Holocaust Remembrance Day , Berlusconi said the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini , except for passing anti-Jewish laws in , only had done "good things" for Italy; and also said Mussolini from a strategic point of view did the right thing in siding with Adolf Hitler during World War II , because Hitler at the point of time when the alliance was made had appeared to be winning the war.

Berlusconi's career as an entrepreneur was also often questioned by his detractors. The allegations made against him generally included suspicions about the extremely rapid increase of his activity in the construction industry in the years —63, hinting at the possibility that in those years he received money from unknown and possibly illegal sources.

Berlusconi's remarkable ability to face down the courts repeatedly - and maintain his popularity in politics - was unrivalled. He often complained of victimisation - particularly by prosecutors in his native Milan - once claiming to have made 2, court appearances in trials over 20 years. Charges over the years have included embezzlement, tax fraud and false accounting, and attempting to bribe a judge.

He was acquitted or had his convictions overturned on several occasions. His controversies were highly public and formed a regular backdrop throughout his political career. It was not until February that he was finally cleared of bribing witnesses to lie about the notorious "bunga bunga" parties he had held at his villa as prime minister. He had founded his own political party 30 years earlier in and within a year, he was catapulted to power.

Leveraging his enthusiasm for football, he named his party after a supporters' chant - Forza Italia Go Italy. At the time, a power vacuum had emerged in the wake of a scandal affecting Italy's centre-right - and Berlusconi offered an alternative to those voters that was not leftist. A massive advertising campaign on his own TV channels had helped propel him to victory in the election.

However, his new appetite for politics was seen as a bid to avoid being implicated in corruption charges himself, after several of his businesses were drawn into the investigation. But he dismissed the claims. I have houses all over the world, stupendous boats, beautiful airplanes, a beautiful wife, a beautiful family. I am making a sacrifice.

Once he was in power, Berlusconi's government passed a law that gave him, and other top public figures, immunity from prosecution while in office, but it was later thrown out by the constitutional court. Berlusconi's first coalition lasted only a few months - partly owing to friction between the different parties in it, and partly because of Berlusconi's indictment for alleged tax fraud by a Milan court.

He lost the election to the Left - but his political career was only just beginning. In , Berlusconi was back as prime minister, at the head of a new coalition known as House of Freedoms. The main plank of his election campaign was a promise to overhaul the Italian economy, simplify the tax system and raise pensions. But Italy's finances were suffering in a worsening global economy, and Berlusconi was unable to fulfil his pledges.

He lost to the Left in - but won again in He remained a fixture in Italian politics until , which would prove among his most challenging years. Italy's borrowing costs soared during the eurozone debt crisis. The prime minister haemorrhaged support and was forced to resign after losing his parliamentary majority. The same year, the constitutional court struck down part of the law granting him and other senior ministers temporary immunity.

By the end of , he was out of power. He was the first to become Prime Minister without first holding another office. He is the leader of a coalition named Forza Italia. Berlusconi is also the most important manager of Italy, he is the owner of television group Mediaset , of the editorial group "Mondadori" and of the Bank group Mediolanum SpA.

He was born in Milan. Berlusconi had some problems with justice, including fraud , and corruption In the s he entered politics and he has been Head of Government in , in and since to On 26 October , he was convicted of fraud. He founded a holding company, Fininvest, to manage his expanding portfolio of interests as commercial stations mushroomed virtually overnight.

Berlusconi worked quickly to create a major library of films, and then rented them out to the new stations in exchange for their advertising on his new Pubitalia publishing subsidiary. By , he was the dominant force in a skyrocketing television market that over the next five years increased its share of national advertising from 15 to 50 percent.

In the meantime, Berlusconi began stringing together a nationwide communications network, Canale Five, in and completed it in He created the illusion of a single channel that people could tune into by sending the same film by courier to many of the independent television stations. The pirate stations would then transmit the show simultaneously to their viewers.

Unabashedly appealing to the mass market, he stockpiled foreign game shows, soap operas, and popular movies to lure viewers away from the stodgy government—run channels. Berlusconi's position as a media baron was strengthened when the courts reversed their earlier decision and legalized private national networks as long as anti—trust provisions were observed.

He bought out two of his closest competitors in and , cementing his domination of the country's commercial television market. Meanwhile, the reach of Berlusconi's media empire had extended to commercial television in France, where he created La Cinq in ; in Germany, where he founded Telefunf in ; and in Spain, where he established Telecinco in When the courts ruled later in that Canele Five had usurped RAI's state—sanctioned right to broadcast a national service simultaneously, Berlusconi summoned his old friend Craxi, who had since become prime minister, to reverse the order.

Thus benefiting from a general move toward deregulation, Berlusconi was permitted to maintain a virtual duopoly with RAI over the nation's television market. For the remainder of the s, he continued to acquire more and more media holdings. A passionate soccer fan, he poured money into the club until it soon became the most successful Italian soccer team ever.

With him as chairperson, the team has since won the Champion's League title four times, the National League title seven times, and the World Cup Championship twice. He also bought the popular Standa department store chain in and, after a gigantic legal tussle, the Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S. The latter purchase gave Berlusconi instant control over 20 percent of the Italian publishing market.

His relentless acquisitions also exponentially increased Fininvest's debt load to dangerous levels, but Berlusconi had already become a billionaire. At this point, Berlusconi found himself increasingly hounded by demands from all quarters that he break up his media empire for violating virtually every anti—trust law in the books. As these pressures increased through the first part of the s, he made a decision that some saw as foolish but that others perceived as an effort to grab the power of the very forces opposed to him: he announced that he would run for prime minister.

In typical aggressive fashion, Berlusconi handed over to close friends all his positions at Fininvest and other companies to avoid political conflicts of interest and immediately organized a political coalition named Forza Italia after the ubiquitous soccer chant meaning "Go Italy". He appointed himself as its leader. Allying the new grouping with a federalist party and the remains of a disbanded neo—fascist group, he geared up his media companies to begin a television and print blitz to advertise his candidacy.

Several editors of his press concerns resigned in protest at being told whom to endorse in the typically free—for—all run—up to elections. Berlosconi pressed on, portraying himself as honest and in touch with the concerns of young Italians while pledging to eradicate corruption, lower taxes, increase personal choice, and promote free—market economics.

In , a national poll revealed that Italian teenagers ranked Berlusconi ahead of Jesus Christ and the Italian president when asked about the ten people they admired most. However, disaster struck when the leader of the fascist group praised deceased Italian dictator Benito Mussolini as the century's finest statesman. It was a testament to the power of Berlusconi's personality that he was quickly able to smooth over the outrage that instantly arose over the comment about the hated leader.

Berlusconi held up his lack of political experience as a virtue to voters, telling them that his success as a businessman was excellent preparation for him to transform the bloated, inefficient Italian government into a lean, streamlined machine that would work for the people and provide a fresh start for all, with sweeping tax cuts and millions of new jobs.

The media much of which he ran, of course quickly dubbed Berlusconi "the Knight. The media and Berlusconi's own personal flair prevailed, and the Freedom Pole won 43 percent of the popular vote in March elections—enough to enable him to form a government of which he was appointed prime minister. However, despite his precautions, allegations of conflicts of interest arose quickly, fueled by the fact that Berlusconi and his family had retained 51 percent of Fininvest's interests.

Coupled with these suspicions, when one of the coalition's parties bailed out of the union, Berlusconi's government collapsed after only nine months in power. In the meantime, his carefully cultivated image as a politician who was above the nation's traditional corruption began to crumble when it was revealed that Berlusconi had in joined the sinister Propaganda Two group.

This was a secret Masonic lodge that had created a powerful state within a state with strong influence on the secret police , banks, the government, and the military. Undaunted by these obstacles, Berlusconi began selling off more and more of his shares in his wide array of holdings, and in —just two days before the April general election—he officially declared that he no longer had a majority control in any business.

His past continued to haunt him, however, with further allegations of corruption and misdeeds, and although he succeeded in being elected as a member of Parliament representing his right—wing coalition, he was forced to abandon his bid for the premiership. As charges of misdeeds continued to pile up, Berlusconi alleged that left—wing politicians had mounted a plot against him.

He was convicted of several financial crimes related to accounting and illegal political funding in and He managed to have these overturned on appeal, but those charges were followed by allegations of bribery and other misdeeds in Nevertheless, he was reelected as a member of the European Union Parliament in and remained opposition leader in his own country's Parliament until , when he was once again appointed prime minister on May Berlusconi and his House of Freedoms coalition had won the popular vote by Nevertheless, plenty of people were outraged by Berlusconi's second rise to power, and in hundreds of thousands of them staged a massive protest to drive home their point—that his heavy involvement in the world of business made him incapable of being an impartial and fair national leader.

The government was shaken to its core later in when a mammoth corruption scandal came to light that involved some 6, politicians and business leaders, including Berlusconi's brother Paolo and his friend Craxi, and billions of dollars in graft. Meanwhile, Berlusconi himself served as foreign minister in addition to his role as prime minister for ten months in Berlusconi got a reprieve from the courts in when Parliament passed a controversial law making the government's top officials, including the prime minister, immune from prosecution.