The People of Freedom (PdL) party will not be right-wing, centrist or left-wing but will rise above political pigeon-holes, Premier Silvio Berlusconi said of his party Wednesday ahead of its official launch this weekend.
Although the PdL has existed since Berlusconi announced its formation before the 2008 general elections, it will only formally come into being at a three-day constituent congress that will see Berlusconi's centre-right Forza Italia merge with its main ally, the right-wing National Alliance.
In a letter to a small ex-Christian Democrat party considering joining the PdL ranks, Berlusconi said Wednesday that the new party would ''overcome the old categories of petty politics''.
''The PdL will have its own identity: it will not be right-wing nor left-wing, nor express a moderatism without courage,'' he said, adding that it would be a party of ''Catholics, non-Catholics and liberals''.
The party will ''defend the family as a founding nucleus of civil society... and defend freedom of business and private property... but it will also never leave anyone alone on the margins of society,'' he added.
The premier also pledged that the PdL would fight ''fragmentation and personalism'', which he described as ''two of the worst evils in Italian politics'' that led to instability and a lack of credibility.
''If in our previous experience of government some reforms that we considered important... ran aground in parliament, it was because of a lack of unity,'' he said, adding that the party now had ''a unity of which we can be proud and consider a precious treasure''.
Forza Italia was created by Berlusconi just before the 1994 election, filling a political vacuum left by corruption scandals.
The National Alliance (AN), born in 1995 from the ashes of the neofascist Italian Social Movement (MSI), officially ceased to exist on Sunday and this weekend will become the junior partner in the new PdL.
The three-day PdL congress kicks off on Friday with an address by Berlusconi, who is also expected to make the closing address after he is elected party leader.
As leader he will have unprecedented powers over the party that will allow him to name all officials and political candidates.
