Berlusconi, Silvio

Berlusconi, Silvio (1936- ), Italian businessman and politician, Prime Minister of Italy (1994). Berlusconi was born in Milan. After studying law at university there, he became general manager of a building contracting company in 1959. In 1961 he established Cantieri Riuniti Milanesi and in 1963 Edilnord di Silvio Berlusconi & Company, two companies through which he built Milano 2 and other integrated residential/commercial developments. He then diversified his investments so that by 1994 his holding company, Fininvest, had majority control of the three leading private television stations, two daily newspapers, numerous magazines, the publishing company Arnoldo Mondadori Editore SpA, the department store chain La Standa, and the football club AC Milan, as well as a range of insurance and other financial companies.

Berlusconi had been a close friend of the Socialist politician Bettino Craxi, who was forced out of politics during investigations, starting in 1992, into systematic corruption, but in 1994 Berlusconi created his own political movement, Forza Italia (named after a football supporters' slogan), which allied with the regionalist Northern League and the neo-fascist National Alliance to fight the general election in March. Berlusconi's organization won 21 per cent of the vote and with its allies, who won 23 per cent between them, formed a government in May with Berlusconi as prime minister. In July his coalition partners forced him to withdraw a plan to reduce the powers of investigating magistrates. He was forced to resign as prime minister in December 1994, when the Northern League left his coalition. Throughout 1995 he tried to form another government, amid continual criticism over his substantial media interests and his failure to resolve conflicts between his political and business careers.

Though put on trial in January 1996 for allegedly bribing state financial investigators, he contested the general election in April, only to see his party's share of the vote slip; he was, however, able to retain his leadership of Italy's centre-right. A compromise agreement in December 1996 with the coalition government of Romano Prodi suspended attempts to end Berlusconi's indirect control of his three national television channels, in return for his cooperation in constitutional reform. In January 1997 Berlusconi's trial on corruption charges was declared void after the presiding judge stepped down over allegations of bias against the defendant. In December 1997 Berlusconi was found guilty of false accounting. However, legal technicalities prevented a jail term. In July 1998 he was sentenced to 33 months in jail for bribing Italian tax officers, though under Italian law he was able to avoid serving the sentence.