By FRANCES D’EMILIO (Associated Press) ROME (AP) — Silvio Berlusconi cast a spell over Italy — and nearly led it to financial ruin. Many Italians admired the media mogul for his wealth, his charm and his brash, boastful style, and they kept returning him to power, making him the country’s longest-serving premier. Nothing seemed to shake the one-time cruise ship crooner — not his corruption trials or diplomatic gaffes, not accusations that he was wrecking the country, not even the lurid scandals stemming from sex-fueled “bunga bunga” parties with young women at his villas that turned him into a global joke. Berlusconi — who died Monday at the age of 86 — had a hold on Italian politics that he summed up in 2009: “The majority of Italians in their hearts would like to be like me.” That affection faded in 2011 when Europe’s debt crisis turned Italy’s economy into a shambles, and many blamed Berlusconi, forcing him from office.

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