Ex-premier and centre-right Forza
Italia (FI) leader Silvio Berlusconi said Thursday his goal is
for FI to get 30% of the vote in next year's general election.
FI is currently polling below 15% in all major surveys.
"Faced with the failure of the left and its governments,
Forza Italia constitutes, in Palermo as in Rome, the only
serious and credible alternative to the protest vote, to
pauperism, rebellion and rough justice," he said days after
leading the centre right to victory in Sunday's Sicilian
elections.
The three-time former premier and media magnate said the
ideas of the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S), the
single biggest party in Sicily, were "dangerous for the future
of the economy".
He said it was "impossible to entrust the future of the
country to improvised politicians" like those allegedly in the
M5S.
FI ran in a three-way alliance in Sicily it expects to
replicate at the national level next March or May.
Its allies are the anti-immigrant, anti-euro Northern League
(LN) party and the small nationalist Brothers of Italy (FdI)
party.
Berlusconi is currently banned from standing as premier by a
tax-fraud conviction.
His appeal against the ban will be heard by the European
Court of Human Rights on November 22.
He and LN leader Matteo Salvini have agreed that the leader
of the alliance will be decided by which party gets more votes.
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