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ROME: Centre-left flagbearer Walter Veltroni, the underdog in Italy's elections, will stage his final campaign rally on Friday in a bid to sway the undecided not to hand conservative leader Silvio Berlusconi a third stint as prime minister.
Fighting off repeated insinuations by the media tycoon that Veltroni will forever be a closet communist, the former Rome mayor who heads a new, American-style Democratic Party is banking on his message of renewal.
Nearly 20 years younger than the 71-year-old Berlusconi, Veltroni received a boost on Thursday from US film actor George Clooney, who was promoting his latest movie in Rome and likened him to US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
The US megastar "told me there is a similarity between my electoral campaign and that of Barack Obama, in my persona, in the intensity that we both show, the passion, the newness, and in the obvious generational shift," Veltroni said.
Veltroni, a movie buff and one-time journalist who created the Rome film festival in 2006 to wide acclaim, was the city's mayor for seven years until he resigned to run in the elections.
He has criss-crossed the nation in a bus convoy emulating US Republican presidential candidate John McCain's Straight Talk Express.
Meanwhile, late Thursday, the flamboyant Berlusconi urged thousands of supporters outside Rome's Colosseum to "go and convert people!" ahead of the Sunday-Monday vote.
"It's important, you have missionary work to do towards all the undecided voters. You are the missionaries of truth and freedom," said the self-made billionaire at his closing rally.
Berlusconi accused Veltroni of having run "a campaign of lies," adding that the Democratic Party, formed in October, was only the latest incarnation of the Italian Communist Party.
"But men never change, it's the same old communist nomenclature, the same ideology," Berlusconi said, adding: "Truth doesn't exist for the left."
Final voter surveys published 10 days ago gave Berlusconi a comfortable lead over the 52-year-old Veltroni.
Berlusconi, winner or runner-up in four past elections, has the distinction of having headed the only government since World War II that lasted through a full five-year term, from 2001 to 2006.
He is a formidable communicator, aided by a media empire that includes three of Italy's seven national television networks.
Veltroni's final rally will be in Rome's Piazza del Popolo on Friday.
Whoever wins will have to contend with a stalling economy, a populace disaffected with the political class and familiar legislative gridlock.
- AFP/so
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