This is confirmed by his relatives and healers Silvio Berlusconihospitalized in intensive care at the San Raffaele hospital in Milan, he records an “encouraging improvement” of the lung infection which forced him to hospital on Wednesday. The infection, the medical bulletin acknowledges, was caused by a chronic leukemia that the former prime minister suffered “for a long time”, according to some sources, from two years ago.
The chronic leukemia he suffers from is treated with chemotherapy, least invasive as possible due to his age, 87 years old. The ideal would be to have a spinal cord transplant, but this alternative is precisely because of his old age is discarded.
The goal is that chronic leukemia don’t be sharp, in which case, specialists say, the danger to his life would be high. The doctors treating him say the chemotherapy is working well so far and there are no signs of worsening.
Berlusconi is back on the phone showing optimism. “This time too I will make it,” he told Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, wishing him a speedy recovery from pneumonia.
Recently, on March 30, the head of Fininvest and Forza Italia, one of the acronyms with which he was four times prime minister until 2011 he left four days of hospitalization at the San Raffaele hospital for pneumonia. She was due back last Wednesday when it was revealed that the worst thing she is suffering from is chronic leukemia.
The many lives of Berlusconi
The Italian press treats Berlusconi with a white glove when he draws his victorious biography which allowed him to raise a fortune estimated by the American magazine “Forbes”. seven billion dollars.
One part makes synthetic references, other newspapers say nothingon the busiest part the world has known the many lives of our character: the revelations and trials that Berlusconi underwent for the holidays Bunga Bunga with little girls in some of his sumptuous villas in Sardinia and in Milan, and also in Rome when he was head of government.
Berlusconi he managed to get away with it so far from criminal proceedings. Acquitted, for example, in the most difficult case, accused of having paid salaries to some of the girls so that they did not tell the truth about what would happen at parties with the girls.
Origin and ascent
Berlusconi’s many lives began when he was a young law student in Milan, earning his living singing on pleasure boats, accompanied on the piano by his best friend. Faithful Confalonieri, today one of his most trusted men.
Already a 27-year-old “doctor”. boldly founded the Edinor construction company in 1969, with which he laid the first bricks of his empire, creating a district of 4,000 inhabitants in Milan. Success leads him in 1968 to create Edinor 2 where Milano 2 will be born, a city within Milan.
In 1977 Berlusconi received the prestigious title that the President of the Republic grants to entrepreneurs of Cavaliere del Lavoro. The following year the most important company was born: fininvesta “holding” that coordinates all its activities, according to the Italian news agency ANSA.
Everything was ready for the new big leap that would unite the two economic sectors of Berlusconi’s empire: construction and television. in 1979 buy Telemilano which two years later will be Canale 5 and which will become the main private television channel in a market that was then entirely occupied by state-owned Rai.
In 1982 it extended by purchasing the group that would later become Italia 1 and two years later it was completed with Rete 4 his empire on Italian private television.
A very important character enters this story: Bettino Craxi, leader of the Socialist Party and prime minister. In 1984 the prosecutors of Turin, Rome and Pescaara accused the television networks Fininvest of having violated the law which forbids private networks to broadcast on a national scale.
The Craxi government, with a decree law, legalizes the situation of Fininvest. The socialist leader was a close friend of Berlusconi.
In the 90s Berlusconi expanded again climbing the Mondadori editorial, the largest book publisher and Einaudi Editore.
His time at Milan
In 1986 Berlusconi was once again the protagonist, buy the Milan clubone of the most followed in the country, of which he will be president in the golden years, with successes in Italy and Europe in series. Twenty-seven Italian titles and foreigners later, in 2017 he sold the company to a Chinese tycoon.
The leap into politics
Some close friends claim without confirmation that Berlusconi has decided to act in politics on the advice of his friend Bettino Craxi. On January 26, 1994, he announced it with great fanfare He left all his positions in the Fininvest group and that he would run for election. On March 27, 1994 he won and was President of the Council of Italy. Three more times he will repeat the feat.
The decline began in late 2011 when he had to step down as head of government under irresistible pressure from the European Union to government accounts out of control.
He was elected senator but on 1 August 2013 the Court of Cassation confirmed the sentence in a four-year prison trial. Three of them were redeemed by a pardon, and the last one with chicanes that kept him behind bars.
The fall
But the Senate Electoral Board voted for its decline as a senator for his court conviction.
His Forza Italia party has lost popular support and currently it collects 6.5% of the votes. Two years ago Berlusconi ran for the Presidency of the Republic, which would have crowned the dream of his life as the most important character of the Italy that lived. But her maneuvers, especially with her centre-right government mates, have failed.
He was able to console himself with being elected to Parliament and nine years after being expelled from the Senate he recovered in the last elections in September 2022 his seat as a senator.
an unexpected illness
Berlusconi’s disease creates many unknowns on the future of his Forza Italia party. As long as “Berlusca”, as the Milanese call him, is still alive, his figure is not in question.
First, Berlusconi has an official number two who is the current foreign minister Antonio Tajanipolitical expert.
A few months ago Berlusconi authorized the massacre of the factions that most contest the government of Giorgia Meloni.
help him his companion Marta Fascina, 50 years younger, whom Berlusconi calls “my wife” and with whom he had a luxurious “engagement wedding”. They say the sons opposed the civil marriage due to the inevitable consequences on the inheritance and the danger of weakening Fininvest and other pillars of the empire.
Apparently Fascina has made an agreement with Berlusconi’s eldest daughter, Marina, and with Tajani to maintain control over the vicissitudes of internal currents in Forza Italia.
If Forza Italia, for example, were to disappear or emigrate from the governing coalition, it would exist a huge imbalance in the ruling coalition. The only center party would be lost and the coalition would gain a condition directly to the right, with Fratelli d’Italia and Matteo Salvini’s League as partners.
The importance of Forza Italia is also given by its loyalty to the European People’s Party, the main political force at European level of the centrist, liberal conservative and Christian Democrat parties. Berlusconi always flaunts his status as founder of the European People’s Party.
Instead Meloni and Salvini founded right-wing groups at the level of the European Parliament, which seat of right-wing and far-right parties of direct anti-European nationalist inspiration e even fascist.
He began to deal with party issues Marina Berlusconi, also called “the queen”. She is the eldest daughter of Berlusconi and the main manager of her father’s company, accompanied by her brother Pier Silvio. The other three children, born from the second marriage of “il Berlusca”, occupy important but minor positions and are absorbed by Marina.
Marina Berlusconi mainly deals with the Mondadori publishing house, but also with Fininvest, the central company of Berlusconi’s power.
In addition to Fininvest, where Berlusconi controls 61.2%, this power extends to important stakes, for example in Banco Mediolanum, the luxurious villas he owns which are grouped together in another company, Dolcedrago.
The total recognized by Fininvest amounts to 3,500 million euros, but the North American magazine Forbes, which specializes in calculating who they are the millionaires more millionaires around the world, estimates that Berlusconi’s total assets, calculating his holdings in other companies and his activities abroad, reach 7 billion dollars.
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Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.