ROME — Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi threw his rivals for the leadership of Italy’s center-right off balance by blessing a new political party led by a 39-year-old former beauty queen turned entrepreneur.
Michela Vittoria Brambilla, who officially registered the Freedom Party and its logo with the European Union on Aug. 6, said she was acting “on Silvio Berlusconi’s mandate.”
“Brambilla represents a serious slice of Italy and of young Italian women from the North, tremendous hard workers and lovers of money without complexes, aggressive and immodestly dressed,” said Maria Laura Rodota, a commentator for the Corriere della Sera newspaper.
Sex appeal has its place in Italian politics.
When a Christian Democratic lawmaker was caught recently in a hotel with two prostitutes, one of whom had overdosed on cocaine, the party responded by recommending a bigger travel allowance for lawmakers.
The reasoning was that lusting parliamentarians would use the extra money to join their wives back home on weekends, thereby avoiding temptation.
In January, Mr. Berlusconi’s wife, Veronica, forced him to publicly apologize for a series of quips to attractive younger women at a public function.
“The temptation to give in to you is so strong. I can’t resist,” he apparently told one. He was also overheard telling several women, “If I wasn’t already married, I would marry you right away.”
Miss Brambilla said her Freedom Party and its symbol — a circle with a rainbow bearing the colors of the Italian flag and the name “Partito della Liberta” — are now at the “complete disposal” of Mr. Berlusconi, who celebrates his 71st birthday next month.
Mr. Berlusconi, recently fitted with a pacemaker and visibly slower, tasked the flamboyant, red-headed Miss Brambilla to start a constellation of 15,000 political clubs, known as Freedom Circles. She also created a private TV channel to help publicize the effort.
Most pundits expect he will be succeeded as opposition leader, either by former Chamber of Deputies speaker Pier Ferdinando Casini, leader of the Catholic Union of the Democratic Center, or the “post-Fascist” ex-foreign minister Gianfranco Fini, head of the National Alliance.
But commentators say Miss Brambilla, a one-time Miss Italy contestant, has been gaining consensus among center-right voters who find her youth and directness refreshing.
The new Freedom Party group would moderate who belongs to the country’s main conservative parties, including Mr. Berlusconi’s Forza Italia, La Stampa newspaper reported, citing sources close to Mr. Berlusconi.
Mr. Berlusconi told the Ansa news agency that the La Stampa report was an “invention” and that Forza Italia was “irreplaceable.”
He said the new party’s name was registered only to prevent someone else from doing so before him.
Italy’s conservative parties until late last year were grouped in a coalition named the House of Freedom. But political rifts since emerged and Mr. Berlusconi is searching for ways to reunify the right.
But thus far, Mr. Berlusconi’s allies appear less than enthusiastic about Freedom Party.
The Northern League bluntly told Mr. Berlusconi to drop his bid to merge coalition forces into a single bloc.
“We’re not interested in single parties … and we’re not the least bit interested in the Freedom Party,” said Roberto Calderoli, a legislator with the Northern League.
Maurizio Gasparri, a former minister and leader of the National Alliance, insisted “our aim is to return to government, not create a brand name. … We’re dealing with politics here, not Coca-Cola.”
Forza Italia legislator Niccolo Ghedini, who is also Mr. Berlusconi’s lawyer, sought to play down potential coalition tensions.
“The aim of this initiative is to win over the non-voters, who account for almost 20 percent of the electorate, and certainly not to substitute or compete with other parties in the center-right coalition,” Mr. Ghedini said.
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