Berlusconi returns to the Italian Senate nine years after being expelled

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has achieved a personal revenge today.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
13 October 2022 Thursday 05:31
7 Reads
Berlusconi returns to the Italian Senate nine years after being expelled

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has achieved a personal revenge today. Nine years after being disqualified for a tax fraud conviction, the tycoon has regained a seat in the Senate, on the first day that the new Italian chambers are constituted as a result of the national elections won by the right-wing bloc led by Giorgia Meloni.

With difficulty walking due to his advanced age – he has just celebrated his 86th birthday – Berlusconi took a seat a few minutes after Senator for Life Liliana Segre, a survivor of the Shoah, rang the bell to start the session. He has decided to avoid a public corridor and enter through an internal elevator, although he has also looked several times towards the gallery where the photographers were. He is, without a doubt, the star of the day: in the first recess several senators have come to greet him and even take selfies with him.

In November 2013, Berlusconi was expelled from the Senate after twenty years of continuous presence in the Italian Chambers after being sentenced to four years in prison for tax fraud. The sentence prevented him from holding any public office until he was elected to the European Parliament in the 2019 elections.

The leader of Forza Italia returns "without any spirit of revenge", he wrote on social networks, where he has also published the paperwork he has had to fill out to register his return. He has achieved his seat at the Monza school, where a few years ago he bought the local soccer team and with a millionaire outlay has managed to promote it to Serie A.

Berlusconi has come directly from the Chamber, where he has met with his coalition partners to close the last knots to divide the presidencies of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. Except for surprises, the one from the Upper House should go to Ignazio La Russa, a faithful collaborator of Meloni, a former militant of the post-fascist Italian Social Movement (MSI) and founder of the Brothers of Italy.

The negotiations for the formation of the Italian government are proving more complicated than expected due to the demands of Forza Italia and the League, considered unacceptable by Meloni. The far-right leader Matteo Salvini, also a senator, has arrived today with a very serious face on the first day of the legislature.