Giulio Andreotti

Seven times prime minister, Andreotti is the case for the prosecution against Christian Democracy's long dominance. He was a skilled operator who led the Communist-backed governments of the late 1970s and was close to the Vatican, but also the patron of a Sicilian faction tied to organised crime: an appeal court in 2003 found he had associated with the Mafia until 1980, though the offence was time-barred. The Tangentopoli bribery scandals then destroyed his party in 1994.