Former center right premier
Silvio Berlusconi said Thursday he will gladly attend a rally
organized by the rightwing, anti-immigrant Northern League (LN)
at the weekend.
"I am very happy to accept the invitation of League
secretary, Matteo Salvini," said Berlusconi, who leads the
center-right Forza Italia (FI) party.
An earlier version of FI and the League were erstwhile
ruling coalition partners under previous Berlusconi
administrations, along with the now-defunct, rightwing National
Alliance (AN).
"We could not remain indifferent to the pressure from our
voters, who have been insistently calling on a strong
demonstration of center-right unity," Berlusconi said.
"The center-right movements are absolutely convinced they
can only win as long as they are united".
"I am happy about Berlusconi's presence," said Salvini.
"A finally compact opposition can liberate Italians from
the left, its taxes and its (immigrant) invasion".
Salvini is an outspoken opponent of the government's
open-door policy towards asylum seekers.
In the latest polling, Renzi's Democratic Party (PD)
remained Italy's number one party at 34% of projected votes,
followed by the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement at 26.4%, LN
at 14.8% and FI at 9.6%.
The small rightwing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party, who will
also attend the rally, scored 3.1%.
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