The politician died on Monday morning at the age of 86 at the San Raffaele hospital in Milan. According to the Italian news agency ANSA, he had four of his five children and his brother at his bedside.
Pope Francis has sent a message of condolences to Berlusconi’s eldest daughter, Marina. In it, she says she mourns “the loss of a key figure in Italian politics, who fulfilled her public responsibilities with an energetic temperament.”
Praise
Nice words about Berlusconi are heard both from the current Prime Minister Meloni and from the opposition, says the correspondent from Italy Pauline Valkenet. “The dignitaries and important politicians are all full of praise.”
Berlusconi served as Prime Minister of Italy three times: from 1994 to 1995, from 2001 to 2006 and from 2008 to 2011. Furthermore, he has often been linked to corruption, tax evasion, ties to the mafia and the exploitation of women. “This is not forgotten, certainly not in leftist circles.”
State funeral
Berlusconi will receive the state funeral on Wednesday in the Milan Cathedral. The fact that Italy is now led by a right-wing government will have helped in choosing such a funeral, Valkenet thinks. “The speech would have been different if the Five Star Movement had been in power, which intensely hated man”.
On the other hand, Berlusconi is a former prime minister of the country and was a very influential politician for 20 years, Valkenet points out. “He Certainly he has spots on his emblem, but he has served his sentence and has been rehabilitated. Then a state funeral.”
The farewell will take place on Wednesday from 15:00. President Sergio Mattarella, among others, is expected to attend the greeting in the cathedral.
Fury
In 2013 Berlusconi was convicted of tax fraud and expelled from parliament. Last year he came back and was elected senator. However, the fact that the day of the state funeral was declared a day of national mourning also drew criticism.
“It’s seen as a slap in the face to all mafia fighters and women,” says Valkenet. Berlusconi has long been thought to have ties to the Sicilian mafia. “And he was very misogynistic; he paid young girls to have sex with him. There’s that anger too.”