An unlikely figure is set to join Silvio Berlusconi on the election campaign trail: Santo Versace, president of the Italian fashion dynasty.

Mr Versace, 63, the financial and administrative brains behind the company, announced that he was standing for parliament in Calabria, southern Italy, the Versace family home, in the general election on April 13-14 “as a social duty”. “Politics has always been my passion,” he revealed. He said that his father and grandfather had been socialists. “My father always predicted I would go into politics but when I had the chance to break into fashion with Gianni \ I gave up the idea,” he said.

Together with his sister, the designer Donatella, Mr Versace relaunched the Versace brand successfully after the murder of their brother in Miami Beach 11 years ago.

Mr Versace said that he had opted for the centre-right “People of Liberty” alliance led by Mr Berlusconi because he shared the values it placed on education and meritocracy. “My father always said problems could be solved with three words — work, work and work”. He had acted as an adviser to the centre-left regional council in Calabria “but they never asked me to do anything”.

Mr Berlusconi, a self-made billionaire and former Prime Minister, who is the favourite to win next month even though he is 71, has repeatedly been investigated for corruption and is accused by the Left of using his last period in power to protect his own interests rather than to revive the flagging Italian economy.

At the start of the campaign opinion polls put Mr Berlusconi ten points ahead of the Centre Left, led by Walter Veltroni, 52, the personable former Mayor of Rome. The latest polls suggest that Mr Berlusconi’s lead has shrunk to six or even four points.

Last week Mr Berlusconi told a young woman who complained about unemployment during a TV debate that she should “marry a millionaire, like my son”, a reference to Piersilvio, an executive in his media empire.

Mr Versace said he had known Mr Berlusconi as a businessman, before he entered politics in 1994. “I lived in Calabria for 31 years but spent the next 31 years travelling the world. Now I want to focus on the problems of the Italian south again. What interests me is the chance to help people who have trouble making ends meet.”

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