(ANSA) - Senator Marcello Dell'Utri, a key associate of Premier Silvio Berlusconi, said on Sunday that he expected Berlusconi to remain in politics even if he loses next year's general election.
Dell'Utri, a Sicilian businessman credited with creating Berlusconi's Forza Italia party, said in a television interview that "I'm sure Berlusconi has no intention of going in 2006, in the event of an election defeat."
"We will put up a tough fight because we're in politics to stay," added the senator, who is appealing a nine-year sentence on charges of helping the Mafia. Berlusconi, a billionaire media mogul who turns 70 next year, swept to power in May 2001 with the biggest majority in the history of the Italian republic.
Support for his party has since dwindled and Berlusconi is currently trailing opposition leader Romano Prodi in the opinion polls.
In regional elections last April - a key test of popularity with 42 million eligible to vote - Forza Italia made its worst ever showing, taking 18.4% of the vote. In the last elections, Forza Italia was confirmed as Italy's biggest party with 29% of the vote.
Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini said recently that Berlusconi could be replaced as leader of the centre right if other parties in the four-way governing coalition fare better than Forza Italia in next April's general elections.
Fini, who is also deputy premier and heads the rightist National Alliance (AN), said that if AN or the centrist UDC party won more votes than Forza Italia, then "it will be up to the coalition together with the president of the Republic to decide who should be premier."
But he was also careful to defend Berlusconi's leadership record, saying that "Berlusconi is someone you either like or dislike. He is a man who divides public opinion but he is also a man who represented the majority of this country."
A recent poll indicated that the suave, 53-year-old Fini stood a better chance than Berlusconi of narrowing the opposition's lead.
The independent survey said that if Fini were to run instead of Berlusconi, the centre right would gain 45% and the opposition 50%.
But if Berlusconi stands for re-election, the centre right would fall to 40% and the opposition would rise to 54%, the poll said.
The centre right has ruled out a change of leader before the elections, rejecting proposals to follow the opposition's example and hold 'primaries' to decide the issue.
