ITALY:It's looks likely that the Forza Italia leader is set to establish a new centre-right party with Maria Vittoria Brambilla, a former beauty queen, writes Paddy Agnewin Rome
If intense media speculation recently is to be believed, media tycoon and former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi may be about to establish a new centre-right party with which to regain power.
Indeed, if a new party does emerge then Berlusconi has decided to go in for a bit of "rebranding" by launching a new product to woo centre right and, more importantly, undecided voters.
At the centre of this speculation is the photogenic Maria Vittoria Brambilla, a 39-year-old former beauty queen, nowadays fish exporter, who on Tuesday announced that she had registered the name and logos of the as yet unknown "Partito della Liberta" (Freedom Party). A staunch Berlusconi supporter who has already built up a nationwide network of "Freedom Circles", Brambilla only heightened the speculation about her new party when saying: "I acted entirely on behalf of Silvio Berlusconi. The name and the symbol are his, to deal with as he sees fit."
Although Berlusconi was quick to play down the formal registration of the new party, calling the media speculation "much ado about nothing", some of his closest advisers were more forthcoming. While Berlusconi may have felt the need to reassure his nervous, centre-right coalition partners, his advisers had other things to say: "Sure, I knew about this. The Partito della Liberta is an idea Berlusconi had 18 months ago and that's why Ms Brambilla has handed over the name and logos registered by her to Silvio Berlusconi," said Forza Italia senator Niccolo Ghedini, a lawyer who has defended Berlusconi against charges of bribery and corruption.
"The objective [of the new party] is to attract all those who at the moment do not vote, that 20 per cent . . . It seems to us that the Freedom Circles which are grassroots movements of people never previously involved in politics are the right system to recuperate all those alienated by the parties," Senator Ghedini told Rome daily La Repubblica.
Given that Berlusconi has always favoured a strong marketing logic in his approach to politics, he may well be attracted by the idea of a new centre-right party. Not only would that allow him to launch a new "brand" but it would also help resolve two major problems.
Firstly, a new centre-right party might steal some of the thunder created by the centre left's new creation, the Democratic Party, scheduled for an October launch. For more than a year now the centre left has publicly debated the need for such a party which will attempt to outflank militant elements in the centre-left coalition, focusing instead on the electorally appetising middle ground.
Secondly, Berlusconi's new party would serve a function similar to that of the new Democratic party, albeit on the other side of the house. Namely, it would enable him to outmanoeuvre and offload critical coalition partners such as Gianfranco Fini of Alleanza Nazionale, Pierluigi Casini of the ex-Christian Democrat UDC and Senator Umberto Bossi of the Northern League.
But this leaves one important question. What is to become of Forza Italia, the party launched by Berlusconi on the eve of his "overnight sensation" of general election success in April 1994?
Even though senior Forza Italia figures were this week keen to suggest that the new Freedom Party will merely complement Forza Italia, it could transpire that in the not too distant future it will actually replace it.