A high-flying businesswoman and Silvio Berlusconi protegee threw her hat into the political arena on Tuesday, announcing that she had set up a new party with the former premier's blessing.
Michela Vittoria Brambilla said she had officially registered the Liberty Party (PdL) and its logo with the European Union on August 6 "on Silvio Berlusconi's mandate".
She said the party and its symbol - a circle with a rainbow bearing the colours of the Italian flag and the name Partito della Liberta' - were now at the "complete disposal" of centre-right opposition chief Berlusconi.
The development appeared to confirm Brambilla's status as Berlusconi's political darling and a serious contender for the future leadership of the centre right.
The glamorous, 39-year-old redhead has made no secret of her political ambitions while Berlusconi has repeatedly sung her praises.
Berlusconi picked the entrepreneur to launch a network of political clubs last November and she has also created a private TV channel linked to the so-called Liberty Clubs.
In the meantime, she continues to run several companies including a steel firm and heads a confederation of business leaders.
Berlusconi has long been toying with the idea of creating a new party in the hope of merging his own Forza Italia party with other forces on the centre right, including his two main allies: the rightist National Alliance (AN) and the devolutionist Northern League.
The aim would be for the PdL to rival the Democratic Party (PD), a nascent party on the centre left joining together the two largest parties in the governing coalition of Premier Romano Prodi.
But Berlusconi's allies appeared less than enthusiastic on Tuesday about the PdL.
The Northern League bluntly told Berlusconi to drop his bid to merge coalition forces into a single party.
"We're not interested in single parties... and we're not the least bit interested in the Liberty Party," Northern League lawmaker and former minister Roberto Calderoli said.
AN bigwig Maurizio Gasparri, another ex-minister, said that "our aim is to return to government, not create a brand name... We're dealing with politics here not Coca-Cola".
Another top AN member, Giovanni Alemanno, agreed with Berlusconi that greater unity on the centre right was needed to strengthen its election chances but argued that a new programme was the key.
"Centre-right unity will be boosted not by artificial aggregations or new parties but by a new programme," he said.
The UDC, a centrist, Catholic party which was formerly in Berlusconi's coalition but has since distanced itself while remaining in opposition, was also sceptical.
"The PdL is not a serious project... It's a marketing operation which doesn't interest us," the party said.
Forza Italia MP Niccolo' Ghedini, who is also 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% of the electorate, and certainly not to substitute or compete with other parties in the centre-right coalition," Ghedini said.
CENTRE-RIGHT LEADERSHIP QUESTION.
The future of Berlusconi, who turns 71 next month and was recently fitted with a pacemaker, has been a subject of increasing conjecture in Italy.
Many political commentators have speculated that the billionaire media magnate is getting too old for front-line politics.
He has certainly kept a relatively low profile since his narrow election defeat by Prodi in April 2006.
Talk about who could succeed him as the leader of the centre-right coalition has also become more open.
Most pundits have narrowed the field to UDC heavyweight and ex-House speaker Pier Ferdinando Casini and AN leader and ex-foreign minister Gianfranco Fini but Brambilla has been gaining consensus among centre-right voters who find her youth and directness refreshing.
