Berlusconi says FI targetting 30%

(ANSA) - Rome, November 9 - 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.