“The Left?” asks Silvio Berlusconi. “The Left says it loves the poor”. He pauses: the banner-waving supporters braving the rain in Piazza del Plebiscito, Naple’s main square, wait for the punch line. “So it does. The Left loves the poor so much it creates more of them every time it gets into power”.

The crowd erupts, even though it has heard most of Mr Berlusconi’s jokes before. He turns his fire on Walter Veltroni, the earnest, bespectacled new leader of the Centre Left and his opponent in next weekend’s election. “Veltroni? He leads the Bikini Party - it shows a lot but covers up the Communist essentials”. Another roar of approval, to the sound of Mr Berlusconi’s campaign song “Thank God for Silvio”.

The two leaders are fighting a final battle for undecided voters, estimated at between twenty and thirty percent, in a country disillusioned with its chronic political instability, economic decline and self serving elite.

Mr Veltroni, who has also drawn enthusiastic crowds by promising change, mocks the leader of the Centre Right for his age. Mr Veltroni, a former mayor of Rome, is 52, an ex Communist turned social democrat who has cast himself as the Italian Barack Obama, with a “can do” mission to lift Italy out of nepotism, inflation, corruption and near-zero growth.

Mr Berlusconi, a television tycoon and self-made billionaire, is trying for his third term as Prime Minister at 71 - despite his repeated brushes with the law over alleged corruption, his history of gaffes, cosmetic surgery and hair transplants, and the accusation that he used his last period in office to pass laws benefiting himself rather than Italy.

After his narrow defeat against Romani Prodi in 2006 Mr Berlusconi refused to step down, claiming the vote had been marred by “irregularities”, and then retreated to his villa on Sardinia. But the old stager has bounced back, telling election rallies he is “unfortunately irreplaceable”.

Yesterday even Fausto Bertinotti, leader of the Far Left Refounded Communists, admitted Mr Berlusconi had “more rapport with the working class” than Mr Veltroni, who was “bound to lose”. Far from appearing “tired”, as Mr Veltroni claims, Mr Berlusconi - who had an early career as a cruise ship entertainer before making his fortune in property and television - looks and sounds more exuberant than ever, sporting a dark open-necked shirt with his trademark double breasted suit.

The formula clearly works: Mr Berlusconi is five to nine points ahead of Mr Veltroni in the opinion polls.”He is not a politician, he is a hard working entrepeneur who entered politics to save this country,” said Lucio Parrillo, a lawyer from Benevento. And the corruption charges? “All lies. The press and the magistrates in Italy are all left wing. For us Berlusconi has the same status as the Pope. He sees into the future”.

Naples is Centre Left territory, and some of the crowd had been bussed in. But the Left is blamed both locally and nationally for the Mafia-linked Naples rubbish crisis, which has damaged Italy’s image abroad, along with the near-bankruptcy of Alitalia and the scare over dioxin levels in mozzarella.

Mr Berlusconi vowed to hold his first Cabinet meeting in Naples, with the rubbish crisis at the top of the agenda. “Silvio will restore our international prestige” said Nunzia Mascolo, whose mother Carolina was wrapped in a “Vote for Berlusconi “ flag. And his unpredictable gaffes, such as telling an unemployed young woman she should marry a millionaire “like my son”, or women supporters that their job was to make jam tarts for voters? “They just show he has a sense of humour - unlike the Left”.

Some in the crowd had doubts about Mr Berlusconi’s allies, including Gianfranco Fini, the urbane and ambitious leader of the Far Right Alleanza Nazionale, who shared the Naples platform. Mr Berlusconi is also vulnerable to the charge that - unlike Mr Veltroni - he says little about the fight against the Mafia, with which he has long denied having links.

The Right’s promises - lower taxes, a crackdown on crime and illegal immigration - look set to win the day next Sunday and Monday. But because of Italy’s complex electoral system there may be near-deadlock in the Senate, as there was in 2006. Mr Berlusconi moreover has been deserted by a key Christian Democratic ally which is running separately with the backing of the Catholic Church.

There is therefore growing talk of a Grand Coalition “in the national interest” if neither side wins the Senate outright. Yesterday Mr Berlusconi complained that the ballot papers were confusing, with party symbols so close together that voters might “put their cross in the wrong box”. Giuliano Amato, the Interior Minister, responded drily that the ballot papers were drawn up in accordance with an electoral law passed by Mr Berlusconi himself, and it was too late to change them.

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