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Italy’s Berlusconi leaves hospital after op and vows to fight election

The 82-year-old politician insisted he hasn't yet reached “the end of the line” and will continue campaigning for the European elections.

Published: 6 May 2019 17:10 CEST

Italy's Berlusconi leaves hospital after op and vows to fight election

Silvio Berlusconi. Photo: AFP

Italian politician and billionaire media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi was released from hospital on Monday after undergoing an operation for a bowel obstruction.

“I'm fine, I had quite a fright,” the billionaire told journalists as he left the San Raffaele hospital in Milan.

“Many things have happened recently that made me think I had reached the end of the line, but instead I've recovered amazingly well,” he said.

The three-time prime minister, known for being involved in a long string of scandals, was admitted to hopsital last Tuesday with acute abdominal pain, forcing him to miss a rally of his Forza Italia party ahead of this month's European parliamentary elections.

Milan's San Raffaele hospital, where the politician was treated. Photo: AFP

“I promised those who looked after me: I will campaign for the elections,” he said on Monday, though he added that he would limit his appearances to television, radio and newspaper interviews, rather than attending public rallies.

A former cruise ship singer turned property and media magnate, Berlusconi was Italian prime minister for his centre-right Forza Italia on three occasions between 1994 and 2011.

Despite his regular brushes with the law and health concerns – including open heart surgery three years ago — the man known as “the immortal” for his longevity in politics led the Italian right for more than two decades.

Berlusconi has faced a string of charges over the so-called Rubygate scandal linked to his parties and the underaged prostitute Karima El-Mahroug, also known as “Ruby the heart-stealer”.

The businessman is currently on trial accused of paying a witness to give false testimony about his notoriously hedonistic parties.

Berlusconi is also being investigated or prosecuted for alleged witness tampering in Milan, Siena, Rome and Turin, each time accused of paying people to keep quiet about his so-called “bunga-bunga” parties.

READ ALSO: Berlusconi's back: Understanding the enduring popularity of Italy's 'immortal' former PM

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Italian PM Meloni says will stand in EU Parliament elections

Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party, which has neo-Fascist roots, came top in Italy’s 2022 general election with 26 percent of the vote.

It is polling at similar levels ahead of the European elections on from June 6-9.

With Meloni heading the list of candidates, Brothers of Italy could exploit its national popularity at the EU level, even though EU rules require that any winner already holding a ministerial position must immediately resign from the EU assembly.

“We want to do in Europe exactly what we did in Italy on September 25, 2022 — creating a majority that brings together the forces of the right to finally send the left into opposition, even in Europe!” Meloni told a party event in the Adriatic city of Pescara.

In a fiery, sweeping speech touching briefly on issues from surrogacy and Ramadan to artificial meat, Meloni extolled her coalition government’s one-and-a-half years in power and what she said were its efforts to combat illegal immigration, protect families and defend Christian values.

After speaking for over an hour in the combative tone reminiscent of her election campaigns, Meloni said she had decided to run for a seat in the European Parliament.

READ ALSO: How much control does Giorgia Meloni’s government have over Italian media?

“I’m doing it because I want to ask Italians if they are satisfied with the work we are doing in Italy and that we’re doing in Europe,” she said, suggesting that only she could unite Europe’s conservatives.

“I’m doing it because in addition to being president of Brothers of Italy I’m also the leader of the European conservatives who want to have a decisive role in changing the course of European politics,” she added.

In her rise to power, Meloni, as head of Brothers of Italy, often railed against the European Union, “LGBT lobbies” and what she has called the politically correct rhetoric of the left, appealing to many voters with her straight talk.

“I am Giorgia, I am a woman, I am a mother, I am Italian, I am a Christian” she famously declared at a 2019 rally.

She used a similar tone Sunday, instructing voters to simply write “Giorgia” on their ballots.

“I have always been, I am, and will always be proud of being an ordinary person,” she shouted.

EU rules require that “newly elected MEP credentials undergo verification to ascertain that they do not hold an office that is incompatible with being a Member of the European Parliament,” including being a government minister.

READ ALSO: Why is Italy’s government being accused of helping tax dodgers?

The strategy has been used before, most recently in Italy in 2019 by Meloni’s deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, who leads the far-right Lega party.

The EU Parliament elections do not provide for alliances within Italy’s parties, meaning that Brothers of Italy will be in direct competition with its coalition partners Lega and Forza Italia, founded by Silvio Berlusconi.

The Lega and Forza Italia are polling at about seven percent and eight percent, respectively.

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