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ROME - Italian centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi, under attack from his coalition allies, announced that he was starting a new party and would dissolve the Forza Italy [Go Italy!] group he founded in the early 1990s.
Surrounded by supporters in a central Milan square, Berlusconi said he was about to officially present the Party of the Italian People of Freedoms.
"Come with us, against the old fogeys of politics, to form a great new party of the people," Berlusconi said, adding that his "new creation will be a protagonist of Italian politics for the coming decades".
The 71-year-old media tycoon also announced Forza Italia had gathered seven million signatures in towns and cities around the country asking President Giorgio Napolitano to dissolve Parliament and call fresh elections.
Berlusconi's move came after his closest ally said that Berlusconi's Freedom Alliance coalition would collapse by the end of the year unless he changed strategy.
Right-wing National Alliance leader Gianfranco Fini accused Berlusconi of failing to unite the centre-right behind any common proposals and focusing instead on an obsessive and counter-productive call for a general election.
Fini told la Repubblica daily: "The time has come when either the centre-right shows it can unite, find a mission, offer the country a programme, or else we accept that the coalition no longer exists and everyone goes their own way.
- Reuters
