Berlusconi Stages His Comeback

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, now 85 years old, “is likely to be the kingmaker in the election on September 25, buying him another five years of relevance,” Politico reports.

“His image was tarnished by the so-called bunga bunga scandal, in which witnesses described orgies at his lavish villa outside Milan. In 2011, a surging national debt crisis and fears that Italy could default forced him to hand power to technocrat Mario Monti. He faced numerous prosecutions, before being finally ejected from the senate after a tax fraud conviction in 2013.”

“But the unexpected surge of nationalist populism over the past decade provided an opportunity for Berlusconi to carve out a role as a responsible pro-EU, moderate.”