Berlusconi, plutocrat and populist politician

He was a Donald Trump before Donald Trump, and a much more successful businessman than Trump ever was. He plunged into politics and made it big during the 1990s and survived to keep his place in Italy’s national politics for three decades. He became prime minister in 1994, lost it in 1996, returned as prime minister in 2001, lost in 2006, came back in 2008. He was out of power in 2011, faced a four-year prison in 2012 for tax fraud, and his party lost out narrowly in 2013. He came third in 2018, in the same year a court ruled he could stand for an election for public office, he contested and won as Member of European Parliament (MEP), and also entered the Italian Senate.

What made for his long presence in Italian politics? He was not a traditional politician and he did not belong to any ideological formation. He was no doubt a right-wing politician who believed that Italy could do much better than it was doing, and he used his power of wealth – he was a successful businessman who had a thriving media conglomerate, owned a football team – to win the game in politics. He provided a stark and colourful, however dubious, contrast to the staid Italian politician. He promoted himself in the political arena through his own media establishment, continued to live the reckless and glitzy life of a tycoon, and he did not have much respect for political norms. It appears that it was this unconventional image that has won him support among a large chunk of Italians.

 This did not mean that he never lost an election, or that the courts did not discipline him, and he had to abide by the verdicts. But he continued to be his raunchy self and openly claimed that he enjoyed the life of a tycoon. But he also showed that he could lead a country without giving up his luxurious lifestyle.

Defeats did not dampen his spirits. He fought his way back after each defeat. He stayed at the top of Italy’s power politics from 1994 to 2011, about 17 years, and he was prime minister for a decade. He did not shy away from flaunting his wealth in his politics. It is for nearly the first time that a plutocrat like Berlusconi played a key role in democratic politics, and while doing so abided by the democratic rules of the game, accepting defeat, accepting the verdicts of the courts. This is a lesson that Donald Trump can learn from Silvio Berlusconi.

The emergence of Berlusconi, and he precedes Trump by nearly two decades, is an interesting phenomenon in Western democratic politics. It shows that people were willing to bet on a rich man like Berlusconi to tackle the problems of a country.

It is indeed an uncharacteristic decision. Berlusconi might not have delivered what he promised but he has won the mandate of the people more than once. He also showed himself to be a pragmatic politician, where he was ready to be part of a larger coalition as in 2018 though the right-wing League of Matteo Salvini ruled without his party’s support. The sex scandal that he faced of having paid a minor girl attracted legal conviction but it was overturned by a higher court a year later. But he remained unflinching in the face of charges of misdemeanour and doggedly denied wrongdoing. And at the end he got his acquittals.

It is most probable that tycoons like Berlusconi would not be successful politicians in the future because the rich do not have the daring to court unpopularity in the public arena. Berlusconi would remain an isolated example.