Silvio Berlusconi

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Silvio Berlusconi  born 29 September 1936 is an Italian politician the current Prime Minister of Italy as well as an entrepreneur He is also known under the nickname Il Cavaliere literally The Knight due to the knighthood Order of Merit for Labour which he received in 1977 He is the second longestserving Prime Minister of Italy after Benito Mussolini He held this position on three separate occasions from 1994 to 1995 from 2001 to 2006 and currently since 2008 Technically Berlusconi has been sworn in four times because after a cabinet reshuffle as happened with Berlusconi in 2005 the new ministry is sworn in and subjected to a vote of confidence He is the leader of the People of Freedom political movement a centreright party he founded in 2009 As of November 2009 he is the longestserving current leader of a G8 country As of 2011 Forbes magazine has ranked him as the 118th richest man in the world with a net worth of US78 billion Berlusconis political rise was rapid and surrounded by controversy He was elected as a Member of Parliament for the first time and appointed as Prime Minister following the March 1994 parliamentary elections when Forza Italia gained a relative majority a mere three months after having been officially launched However his cabinet collapsed after seven months due to internal disagreements in his coalition In the April 1996 snap parliamentary elections Berlusconi ran for Prime Minister again but was defeated by centreleft candidate Romano Prodi In the May 2001 parliamentary elections he was again the centreright candidate for Prime Minister and won against the centreleft candidate Francesco Rutelli Berlusconi then formed his second and third cabinets until 2006 Berlusconi was leader of the centreright coalition in the April 2006 parliamentary elections which he lost by a very narrow margin his opponent again being Romano Prodi He was reelected in the parliamentary elections of April 2008 following the collapse on 24 January 2008 of Romano Prodis government and sworn in as prime minister on 8 May 2008 see also 2008 Italian political crisis Description above from the Wikipedia article Silvio Berlusconi licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia