Berlusconi says fit and ready to lead Italy again

By Marie-Louise Gumuchian

MILAN (Reuters) - Silvio Berlusconi launched his election campaign on Saturday and rejected polls that suggest he has anything less than a 10 percentage point lead in his battle to be voted prime minister of Italy for a third time.

Addressing some 2,000 flag waving supporters in a sports arena in his home town of Milan, the 71-year-old media tycoon said polls that have shown his lead was shrinking were mere propaganda from his centre-left opponents.

"Polls tell us we have never had less than a 10 percentage point lead over them.

"All they have is the weapon of disinformation, circulating false polls ... and circulating (rumours of) false illnesses -- but I'm very well," he said to laughs and cheers from a crowd whose banners included one that read "Silvio -- our saint".

The latest published opinion poll, in left-leaning La Repubblica, showed Berlusconi's centre-right bloc 6.5 points ahead of the Democratic Party led by Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni, the narrowest gap yet.

The April 13-14 election was called after the centre-left coalition government of Romano Prodi collapsed in January after just 20 months in office when a small, centrist party defected.

Berlusconi mocked Veltroni, almost 20 years his junior, for attempting to be seen as a new player on a political stage dominated by over-familiar career politicians of retirement age.

"Veltroni, the innovator, the 'young' politician, the modern mayor, who instead of getting a degree got a diploma in fiction, in cinema -- he's been in politics for almost 40 years," he taunted.