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ROME : Underdog centre-left leader Walter Veltroni and his conservative rival Silvio Berlusconi made their final pitches to Italian voters on Friday with the two-time former prime minister tipped to win general elections at the weekend.
Veltroni, who has criss-crossed the nation by bus emulating US Republican presidential candidate John McCain's Straight Talk Express, said at his final rally on Friday: "Our journey across Italy ends here in Rome but soon we will begin another, to change Italy and make it more free and fair."
Nearly 20 years younger than his 71-year-old rival, Veltroni has been fighting off repeated insinuations by the media tycoon that he will forever be a closet communist.
The 52-year-old former Rome mayor who heads a new, American-style Democratic Party (PD) received a boost on Friday from Ethel Kennedy, the widow of former US attorney general Robert Kennedy, who wished him luck in the Sunday-Monday polls as she celebrated her 80th birthday.
Veltroni, who authored a biography of Kennedy, was Rome's mayor for seven years until he resigned to lead the PD in the polls.
Berlusconi accused Veltroni of having run "a campaign of lies," adding that the PD, formed in October, was only the latest incarnation of the Italian Communist Party.
Berlusconi's attacks began late in an otherwise lacklustre campaign that has seen both men pledge lower taxes and less government spending.
The two men will appear one after the other -- Berlusconi will have the last word -- late Friday on a political TV talk show before a statutory media blackout until polls close on Monday afternoon.
Meanwhile Italian media reported a probe into possible mafia-linked vote fraud involving expatriates taking part in the polls.
The daily La Stampa reported that an unnamed Italian lawmaker had approached a Sicilian businessman, Aldo Micciche, who is based in Venezuela, to negotiate the buying of 50,000 votes.
The businessman was alleged to have passed the request to the 'Ndrangheta mafia that operates in the southern Calabria region, the report said.
Outgoing Interior Minister Giuliano Amato, at a news conference on Friday, confirmed the probe but declined to elaborate, other than to say: "I advised the foreign ministry which ... renewed instructions that ballots never be lost from sight."
Whoever wins on Monday will have to contend with a stalling economy, a populace disaffected with the political class and all-too-familiar legislative gridlock.
The new prime minister will also have to act quickly to resolve a waste disposal crisis in the southern Naples region and clinch an elusive deal with Air France-KLM to take over the failing Alitalia airline or, likely, oversee its liquidation.
While the last permitted voter surveys -- nearly two weeks ago -- gave Berlusconi the edge, his People of Freedom party faces a tight result in the Senate, which could hamper his agenda.
"On Monday, if the polls were correct, Berlusconi can count on a solid majority in the (lower house) Chamber of Deputies but an uncertain majority, maybe even a non-existent one, in the Senate," the daily La Repubblica said in an editorial.
Ironically, the electoral law that was pushed through by Berlusconi just months before the 2006 elections was expressly designed to hobble the expected Prodi government in the upper house, observers said.
Prodi's government had several close calls in the Senate before it finally collapsed in January when a small centrist party with just three seats withdrew its support.
Berlusconi, winner or runner-up in four past elections, is a formidable communicator, aided by a media empire that includes three of Italy's seven national television networks.
Voters in Rome will also elect a new mayor to replace Veltroni, with outgoing Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli tipped to win a job he held from 1993 to 2001.
Berlusconi caused an outcry among football-crazed Italians after claiming on Thursday that Italian football legend Francesco Totti "must be out of his mind" for his support for Rutelli.
Veltroni responded: "There is no other country where a politician would have insulted a football player because his opinion is different."
- AFP /ls
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