Italy's Berlusconi denies election lead shrinking

By Robin Pomeroy

ROME (Reuters) - Silvio Berlusconi has dismissed opposition claims the gap is closing in opinion polls ahead of April's election, with the media tycoon insisting he will lead the centre-right back to power in an easy victory.

"The Italians have understood that the left is unable to, is incapable of governing," Berlusconi said in an interview with Il Giornale, a daily newspaper owned by his brother.

Walter Veltroni, a former mayor of Rome who became centre-left leader after Prime Minister Romano Prodi's government collapsed in January, said at the weekend he was rapidly closing a 10-point opinion poll gap on Berlusconi.

"In a week we've gained two points -- impressive! We are now less than six (points behind)," he said. "The upturn has begun."

The latest published opinion polls show Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PDL) party with 37-40 percent of the vote, compared with 29-35 percent for Veltroni's Democratic Party (PD).

Berlusconi's position is bolstered by an election alliance with the Northern League, a party that campaigns for autonomy for Italy's wealthy north, which polls around 5-7 percent of the national vote in opinion polls.

But Berlusconi's hopes of a landslide may be frustrated by the refusal of a former ally, the small centrist Union of Christian Democrats (UDC), to join the PDL, a new party merging his Forza Italia with the post-fascist National Alliance.

Renato Mannheimer, pollster at Corriere della Sera daily, said the UDC might get 6-7 percent of the vote, which under Italy's complex electoral system could rob Berlusconi of victory in enough regions to severely limit his parliamentary majority.