Berlusconi Poised for Comeback in General Election

Silvio Berlusconi, at the age of 71, was last night poised to launch his fifth challenge for the leadership of Italy with opinion polls predicting a landslide victory in April's general election.

But this time he will be up against an opponent almost 20 years younger. Walter Veltroni, the mayor of Rome, will be aiming to block the media tycoon's return to power with a party which unites progressive Roman Catholics and moderate former communists like himself.

Polls give Berlusconi and his rightwing allies a lead of between 10 and 15 percentage points. But they also show that by running alone, without support from the radical left, Veltroni and the Democratic party could whittle the gap to less than three.

President Giorgio Napolitano last night met the speakers of both houses of the Italian parliament to make arrangements for the dissolution of the legislature and the calling of a vote. Polling will most likely take place on April 13 and 14.

Italy's head of state summoned the two men after one of them, Franco Marini, the Senate speaker, had tried and failed to stitch together an interim government to reform the electoral law. His efforts ran aground on the refusal of Berlusconi and his allies to countenance anything but a return to the hustings.

In April 2006 they lost the last parliamentary ballot by a whisker, letting in a center-left government led by the former European commission president, Romano Prodi. It survived for 20 months despite incessant quarreling in the cabinet, but fell last month after the defection of two of the smallest parties in the coalition.

Berlusconi has said his top priorities if re-elected will be to abolish an unpopular local authority property tax and introduce draconian punishments for the leaking and publication of bugged telephone conversations. He was recently charged with criminal offenses after being taped while apparently soliciting favours from a senior executive in the state broadcasting corporation, RAI.

This will be the fifth time Italy's richest man and the owner of three of its seven national TV channels has run for the leadership. He was first elected in 1994 at the head of a party, Forza Italia, which he created with the help of his advertising business, Publitalia. Many of his MPs have been former Publitalia executives.

Veltroni, 52, poses a keen threat. A passionate movie fan whose political idol is John F Kennedy, this week he compared himself to Barack Obama.

"Three months ago, nobody would have bet on him," he said. "Now look where he is."

Having spurned electoral reform, Berlusconi is committed to fight the coming election under a system of his own side's invention, which most of his supporters have since repudiated. It can easily lead to clashing majorities in the two chambers of parliament, or a razor-thin majority in the upper house of the kind that handicapped Prodi and ultimately brought down his government.

The risk for both sides is that Italy will be ungovernable after the election. Under Italian law polling has to take place within 10 weeks of the dissolution of parliament.

Revolving doors

Italy's next government will be the 62nd in 63 years. Despite changes to the electoral law to bring greater stability, governments have continued to come and go at a rate of almost one every 18 months:

1994-1995 Silvio Berlusconi's first government, brought down by his ally, Umberto Bossi.

1995-1996 Lamberto Dini. Interim cabinet approved pension reforms.

1996-1998 Romano Prodi's first government. Readied Italy for euro entry.

1998-2000 Two administrations led by former communist leader Massimo D'Alema.

2000-2001 Second of two cabinets headed by socialist Giuliano Amato.

2001-2006 Silvio Berlusconi's second and third governments criticized for legislation allegedly designed to favour his business interests and protect his legal position.

2006-2008 Romano Prodi's second administration. Restored order to Italy's public finances, but at the cost of high taxes and growing unpopularity.