As he prepares to celebrate his 71st birthday next month, Silvio Berlusconi has appalled mainstream rivals for leadership of Italy's centre-right by blessing a new political party launched by a 39-year-old former beauty queen.
Michela Vittoria Brambilla, who started a network of nebulous political clubs last November, said she had officially registered the Partito della Liberta (PDL) and its logo with the European Union on 6 August "on Silvio Berlusconi's mandate".
The party and its symbol - a circle with a rainbow bearing the colours of the Italian flag and the name, translated as the Freedom Party - were now at the "complete disposal" of the television magnate and opposition leader, she said.
Mr Berlusconi picked the flamboyant entrepreneur to launch the network of 15,000 political clubs last November and she has also created a private TV channel linked to the so-called Freedom Circles. She continues to run several companies, including a steel firm and a fish-food company.
Mr Berlusconi was recently fitted with a pacemaker and has slowed down visibly since his electoral defeat by Romano Prodi in April 2006. Most pundits have narrowed the field for succession as centre-right kingpin to the former Chamber of Deputies speaker Pier Ferdinando Casini, the head of the Catholic Union of the Democratic Centre, and the "post-Fascist" ex-foreign minister Gianfranco Fini, the head of the National Alliance.
But commentators say that Miss Brambilla, a former Miss Italy contestant, has been gaining consensus among centre-right voters who find her youth and directness refreshing.
"Brambilla represents a serious slice of Italy and of young Italian women, from the north, tremendous hard workers and lovers of money without complexes, aggressive and immodestly dressed," said Maria Laura Rodota, a commentator for the Corriere della Sera. "Launched as a fake innovation, she could become real... perhaps thanks to her cunning." According to a report in La Stampa newspaper, which cited sources close to Mr Berlusconi, the PDL would group moderates who belong to the country's main right-wing parties, including Forza Italia. Mr Berlusconi sought to reassure his allies on Tuesday by telling the Ansa news agency that the La Stampa report was an "invention" and that Forza Italia was "irreplaceable". He said the PDL's name had been registered only so as to prevent someone else doing so before him.
Until late last year, Italy's right-wing parties were grouped in a coalition, but the centre-right UDC pulled out in December and political rifts have since emerged among leaders.
Mr Berlusconi's allies have appeared less than enthusiastic about the PDL. The Northern League told Mr Berlusconi to drop his attempt to merge coalition forces into a single party.
"We're not interested in single parties," said Roberto Calderoli, an MP for the devolutionist party.
Maurizio Gasparri, the leader of the National Alliance, said yesterday: "Our aim is to return to government, not to create a brand name... We are dealing with politics here, not Coca-Cola."
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