(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-11-19 21:19

ROME - Italy's opposition leader Silvio Berlusconi has dumped his right-wing allies in a bid to form a new centrist force that he hopes can carry him back to power at an early election he wants to contest next year.

Silvio Berlusconi waves during a demonstration for greater security in Milan March 26, 2007. Italian centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi, under attack from his coalition allies, announced on Sunday he was launching a new party and would dissolve the Forza Italy (Go Italy!) group he founded in the early 1990s. [Agencies]

In an interview in Monday's La Stampa, Berlusconi explained his surprise decision to dissolve his "House of Freedoms" alliance with Catholics, northern separatists and post-fascists and found a new party he hopes can dominate Italian politics.

"They've driven me crazy," Berlusconi said of the allies with which he ruled Italy for five years up to last year's narrow election defeat to centre-left leader Romano Prodi.

"I've always been respectful, patient with everybody and yet ... from now on the outlook has completely changed."

Berlusconi stunned his allies by announcing the move on Sunday at the end of a nationwide referendum campaign over the weekend where he says some 8 million Italians signed his call for Prodi to stand down and face fresh elections.

Fourteen years after creating Forza Italia (Go Italy!), which quickly became Italy's biggest centre-right force, Berlusconi said he would brand his new vehicle the "Freedom" or "People of Freedom" party at a party assembly on December 2.

"The novelty is that the new party will be at the centre of the political stage," he said, leaving open the possibility of forming a German-style 'grand coalition' with the main centre-left Democratic Party (PD).

That would require a change to the election system which, under a law passed under Berlusconi, pushes parties to club together in pre-defined coalitions to contest elections -- aimed at creating something like an alternating two-party system.

Berlusconi said that experiment had failed and the blocs on both left and right were made up of squabbling rivals. He said he would negotiate with Prodi on drafting a new election law, aiming for something like Germany's proportional representation.

Although Prodi's term runs until 2011, Berlusconi said many on the left would want to hold an early vote next year. "I don't believe they want to keep on sharing Prodi's agony," he said in a reference to the constant government in-fighting.

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