Berlusconi Pleads for Big Election Majority

Silvio Berlusconi yesterday appealed to Italian voters to give him a huge majority at the general election on Sunday and Monday.

He said that "to really govern" he needed a margin of at least 20 seats in the senate, the upper house of the Italian parliament. That would allow him "to take, if necessary, difficult and unpopular decisions".

Polls have indicated that the 71-year-old media mogul is on the brink of a remarkable comeback, two years after being edged from power. But, because of a ban on polling in the final fortnight of the campaign, the most recent soundings - showing Berlusconi leading by 5% to 9% - date from the end of March. They also suggested that a third of voters had yet to make up their minds.

Though Berlusconi told La Stampa newspaper he was confident his right-wing Freedom Folk would secure the necessary majority in parliament, his rivals pounced on his appeal as evidence he was uncertain of victory. A narrow majority could also leave him a political hostage to the whims of the anti-immigrant Northern League, with which his party is allied.

The billionaire candidate's tone has grown more shrill in the final days of the campaign. On Tuesday Berlusconi, who has been investigated - though never convicted - for a string of alleged financial offenses, said he would introduce mental health checks for prosecutors. Yesterday he lashed out at his main rival, Walter Veltroni, saying: "The truth is, he remains a communist."

Veltroni, 52, a former youth leader of the old Italian Communist party, leads a newly unified center-left party. The Democratic party includes both ex-Marxists like himself and the more progressive wing of the defunct Christian Democrat movement.

A former mayor of Rome, Veltroni won an endorsement from the actor George Clooney, who owns a house in Italy. Clooney said he "talks of hope".

Italians will go to the polls against a background of economic gloom. Last week the International Monetary Fund forecast the economy would grow by 0.3% this year - less than a quarter of the rate in the rest of the euro zone.

Veltroni's program includes tax cuts funded by a huge sell-off of public assets. That, however, is exactly what Berlusconi is promising.

Both men are also vowing to slash the cost of Italy's sprawling public administration. The similarity of their manifestos led to early speculation that they were preparing the ground for a German-style grand coalition if neither won an outright majority. But Berlusconi appeared yesterday to rule that out, saying the center-left leader had "really disappointed me".

Much will depend on the showing of two smaller groups, the center-right Union of Christian and Center Democrats, and the Rainbow Left, an alliance of Greens and Marxists.