To the consternation of many of his allies, Silvio Berlusconi is promoting a striking 39-year-old redhead with sparse political experience as the future “saviour” of the Italian Right.

Italy was consumed by the news yesterday that after months of rumours Michela Vittoria Brambilla, known as “La Rossa”, had registered the name and logo of the “Party of Freedom” (Partito della Liberta) with a notary, at Mr Berlusconi’s behest.

The Party of Freedom is seen as a new umbrella organisation to revital-ise Mr Berlusconi’s centre-right alliance, which lost elections to Romano Prodi’s centre-left coalition a year and a half ago. However, the involvement of Ms Brambilla – a former Miss Italy finalist with a philosophy degree – has been called widely into question.

The former Prime Minister played down the uproar over the party as “much ado about nothing” yesterday, saying he had merely asked Ms Brambilla to register the name to ensure that no one else could use it.

Publicly, Mr Berlusconi has back-tracked over his reported suggestion to aides this spring that Ms Brambilla could one day replace him as centre-right leader, saying he simply meant that the next right-of-centre prime minister could be a woman.

However, reports that Mr Berlusconi, 70, intends to be only a figurehead president of the new party, with Ms Brambilla as its secretary and main driving force, have caused ructions on the Right, where many regard her as overly ambitious and abrasive.

A dynamic and vocal businesswom-an from Lecco in northern Italy and daughter of a steel magnate, Ms Brambilla runs a fish import business and is head of the Italian young entrepreneurs association. She has a two-year-old son, Vittorio, by her partner, Eros Maggioni, also a businessman. She caught Mr Berlusconi’s eye two years ago as a fervent activist for his Forza Italia party. After his 2006 election loss she suggested that she establish a network of 5,000 “Freedom Clubs” to rally grassroots support for his drive to oust Mr Prodi and return to power.

This year she founded “Freedom TV” and a propaganda sheet, Giornale della Liberta, which is given away weekly with Il Giornale, the paper owned by the Berlusconi family. “She does not exactly pass unobserved,” Il Giornale said in an admiring profile, noting that she was always impeccably turned out in high heels and suits.

Ms Brambilla herself is open about her outspoken manner, saying this week: “No one can shut my mouth.” However, Sandro Bondi, the Forza Italia spokesman, said yesterday that while he admired Ms Brambilla for her drive, she knew little about politics, which required “humility, culture and respect for one’s adversaries”.

Senior figures in the centre Right joined him in deriding the move. Mar-cello dell’Utri, co-founder with Mr Berlusconi of Forza Italia, said the party was a “marketing ploy”, while Stefania Prestigiacomo, a minister in the last Berlusconi Government, said that Ms Brambilla’s movement could play a “supporting role” in elections, but Forza Italia “cannot be dismantled”.

The Party of Freedom may be a response to plans by centre-left factions to unite in October as the Democratic Party, almost certainly headed by Walter Veltroni, the Mayor of Rome, regarded as Mr Prodi’s successor.

Mr Berlusconi said the future of the centre-right alliance would be decided in November. He added that Ms Brambilla was head of the “Freedom Clubs”, “and for now that is enough”.

La Rossa

— Born in 1968 Michela Brambilla entered the Miss Italy pageant at 18 and won the title Miss Elegance

— Her father was surprised and horrified when she studied philosophy instead of the business and economics course he supported

— She describes her passions as listening to classical music and playing the piano

Sources: ww.rin.ru; Times archives

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