Berlusconi, 81, seeks one last win in Italy vote

World
Europe

Despite a fraud conviction and sex scandal, Italy's 81-year-old former leader Silvio Berlusconi has one last political victory in his sights in general elections less than two weeks away.

Temporarily banned from returning to public office himself, the billionaire media mogul still hopes to influence the country's political direction by leading a right-wing coalition in the March 4 polls.

"I'm pretty confident of the result of the election and going to form a government with our center-right allies," he told a rally of youth activists from his Forza Italia party in Rome on Wednesday, in a typically outspoken address.

Italy's former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi looks on during the taping of the television talk show "Porta a Porta" (Door to Door) in Rome, Italy, February 14, 2018. /VCG Photo

"I can tell you how to stay young," he added. "I'll tell you the brand of my suppositories."

Berlusconi "wants to win one last time before retiring," his biographer Alan Friedman was quoted as saying by the Corriere della Sera newspaper.

The three-time former prime minister heads a coalition made up of Forza Italia and two far-right forces: The League and Brothers of Italy.

Recent opinion polls indicate the coalition has about 38 percent support overall -- the highest score out of Italy's three major electoral groupings.

But it falls short of a majority and surveys suggest millions of voters remain undecided.

File photo: Senators of the PDL Party (center-right) protest for the votes procedure over Silvio Berlusconi's Parliament expulsion at the Italian Senate, Palazzo Madama on November 27, 2013 in Rome, Italy. /VCG Photo

Tax, sex scandals

Berlusconi is banned from public office due to a 2013 tax fraud conviction.

He also faces charges that he bribed witnesses to lie at his earlier trial for paying for sex with a minor.

In spite of it all, he remains the leading figure of the Italian right almost a quarter of a century after first taking power.

His own party has surged by eight points to 18 percent support in the opinion polls in the past year.

Forza Italia's edge in the polls would give Berlusconi the upper hand in naming the coalition's pick for prime minister.

File photo: People listen to the speech of Italy's former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi outside his private residence, the Palazzo Grazioli, on November 27, 2013 in Rome. /VCG Photo

He and his coalition partners would field wildly different candidates, as they have little in common apart from a desire to win.

First the coalition would need to win a working majority.

This year's election is the first under a complex electoral law introduced last year.

A mix of proportional representation and first-past-the-post, it enables a party or coalition to obtain a majority with around 40 to 45 percent of the vote -- which may be just out of the right-wing coalition's reach.

Source(s): AFP