A close ally of Silvio Berlusconi will this week launch his political manifesto, a move seen as a direct challenge to the embattled Italian Prime Minister. Gianfranco Fini, a former neofascist and now deputy leader of the ruling party, has decided to appeal directly to voters in the same month that Mr Berlusconi faces new trials for corruption. Mr Fini is the leading contender to succeed the Prime Minister -- although Mr Berlusconi has said that he will not resign even if convicted. Mr Fini, who is Speaker of the Lower House, has shed his extreme-Right past and adopted a statesmanlike stance, and on Wednesday will publish The Future of Freedom, subtitled Unasked-for Advice to Those Born in 1989. He observes in the book that Italians now in their twenties were spared communism, fascism and the Cold War. But unimagined technological advances and frontier-free travel in Europe had "not necessarily" made them happier. Instead, "the death of ideology" has led to narcissism and egoism, with the young disillusioned by politics, which appears to be "a vulgar exchange of insults". Mr Fini calls for a return to "inspiring vision, moral imperatives and family values", and tolerance on issues from bio-ethics to immigration.
A close ally of Silvio Berlusconi will this week launch his political manifesto, a move seen as a direct challenge to the embattled Italian Prime Minister.
Gianfranco Fini, a former neofascist and now deputy leader of the ruling party, has decided to appeal directly to voters in the same month that Mr Berlusconi faces new trials for corruption. Mr Fini is the leading contender to succeed the Prime Minister -- although Mr Berlusconi has said that he will not resign even if convicted. Mr Fini, who is Speaker of the Lower House, has shed his extreme-Right past and adopted a statesmanlike stance, and on Wednesday will publish The Future of Freedom, subtitled Unasked-for Advice to Those Born in 1989.
He observes in the book that Italians now in their twenties were spared communism, fascism and the Cold War. But unimagined technological advances and frontier-free travel in Europe had "not necessarily" made them happier.
Instead, "the death of ideology" has led to narcissism and egoism, with the young disillusioned by politics, which appears to be "a vulgar exchange of insults". Mr Fini calls for a return to "inspiring vision, moral imperatives and family values", and tolerance on issues from bio-ethics to immigration.
