Italy: The campaign for Italy's general election kicked off with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi contesting the accuracy of opinion polls that indicate he will lose to Romano Prodi's centre-left.
Italy's president dissolved parliament on Saturday, raising the curtain on a campaign that looks set to be one of the most acrimonious in Italy's postwar history.
The April 9th and 10th election will pit Mr Berlusconi at the head of his incumbent "House of Freedoms" centre-right coalition against Mr Prodi's "The Union" alliance, which ranges from hardline communist parties to centrist Roman Catholic groups.
Latest independent opinion polls put the centre-left opposition some five percentage points ahead but Mr Berlusconi told a rally late on Saturday he had commissioned his own poll from "a serious American company" which showed him leading.
He gave no details on who had carried out the poll.
"I can't take this seriously," said Fausto Bertinotti, head of the communist Refoundation party.
Mr Berlusconi made headlines in newspapers yesterday by comparing himself to Jesus after having compared himself to Napoleon last week.
"I am the Jesus Christ of politics," media quoted him as saying at a dinner with supporters on Saturday. "I am a patient victim, I put up with everyone, I sacrifice myself for everyone."
While media coverage of the start of the campaign was eclipsed by the arrival of bird flu in southern Italy, papers dedicated several pages to the platforms of both sides.
The centre-left programme was outlined in a 281-page book called For the Good of Italy, which included its position on the economy, immigration, taxes, education and foreign policy.
Mr Berlusconi said he was ready to put forward a second edition of a "contract" he signed with Italians before the 2001 election.He promised then to lower taxes, cut crime, raise the minimum pension, create at least 1.5 million jobs and fund some 40 per cent of the infrastructure projects listed in a 10-year government building programme.
- (Reuters)