Silvio Berlusconi

Trivia

• In 1993, Silvio formed the Forza Italia. In the early 1990’s, the Italian judiciary decided to clamp down on corruption, and thereby eliminated many old politicos in what was famously referred to as “Operation Clean Hands”.
• Due to this, the two major political parties, the Christian Democrats and the Socialist Party, lost much of its electoral strength.
• This lead to a situation wherein the upcoming elections at that time, would see the victory of either a coalition of the Democratic party of the Left and its allies, or any other party.
• Taking advantage of such a situation and also his own stature in the country, Silvio decided to form his party which had a strong focus to defeat communism.
• Riding on this and also the promise of creating a ‘million’ jobs, he won the 1994 elections and became Prime Minister. He proposed heavy tax cuts for the self-employed and reduced pensions – these measures aimed at encouraging the entrepreneur.
• This did not go well with the masses that promptly caused a national strike causing the stock market to depreciate by 25% and the national debt to soar. Meanwhile Finivest was embroiled in cases of corruption and Berlusconi himself had to appear at court to testify.
• In 2001, Silvio ran as the leader of the center-right coalition and succeeded in ascending to the post of Prime Minister for the second time as the leader of the “Casa delle Liberta” (House of Freedoms) coalition and this included Alleanza Nazionale, UDC (who were the Christian Democrats), and other parties.
• Winning 45.4% of votes in the elections to the opposition’s 42.5% sealed Silvio the victory.
• In an unofficial agreement with the Italians on a TV show (serving as a election campaign), Silvio claimed he had the ability to improve many aspects of life like increasing employment and reducing crime.
• This was an important step in achieving victory in the elections.

Quotes

• "I am certain that we need a solution completely separate from military intervention."
• "On the contrary, I tried on numerous occasions to convince the American president not to go to war. I did what was within my capabilities to avoid that happening."
• "We all say no to war, we are all for justice and peace. But sometimes in order to maintain peace, armed action is necessary. But we hope it won`t be the case."
• "The link between my experience as an entrepreneur and that of a politician is all in one word: freedom."
• " Only I can turn this country around."
• "I`m not a traditional politician, and I have a sense of humor. I`ll try to soften it and become boring, maybe even very boring, but I`m not sure if I`ll be able to."
• "Bush will keep up that policy that gives the United State the role of promoting freedom in the world."
• "The political tradition of ancient thought, filtered in Italy by Machiavelli, says one thing clearly: every prince needs allies, and the bigger the responsibility, the more allies he needs."
• " I was never convinced that war was the best system to bring democracy to the country."
• " If I, taking care of everyone`s interests, also take care of my own, you can`t talk about a conflict of interest."