Berlusconi starting to boost FI poll figures

(ANSA) - Rome, May 1 - Silvio Berlusconi appears to be boosting the standings of his Forza Italia (FI) party after starting to campaign for the European Parliament elections despite an office ban from a tax-fraud conviction that will mean him spending half a day a week in a home for Alzheimer's patients.
    FI's rating was 19.5%, 0.5% up from the previous week, in a poll released by the Piepoli Institute late Wednesday.
    Premier Matteo Renzi's Democratic Party held tight to a 10-point lead over Beppe Grillo's anti-establishement 5-Star MOvement, both steady on 34% and 24%.
    Other polls have seen the unsinkable Berlusconi touching 20% as he seeks to reel Grillo in with a characteristic fusillade of controversial soundbites including a German deathcamp slur and repeated assertions he is the victim of a political coup by leftist magistrates abetted by Italian President Giorgio Napolitano.
    Analysts have frequently said Berlusconi's ratings go up when he manages to successfully portray himself as the victim of an alleged witch hunt.
    He is expected to milk his four-hours-a week gig at a nursing home near Milan as much as he can, despite the care managers' insistence he was not be able to get up to any high jinks.
    Berlusconi is also knowingly inviting a conversion of his community service into house arrest, pundits say, so he can play up his allegedly persecuted status.
    Berlusconi's eldest daughter Marina, a top exec at his media empire, this week reversed a string of denials she might try to fill her father's political boots, but pundits are skeptical as to whether she will carry the dynastic banner forward on the centre right