Berlusconi's sexism chafes as Italian vote looms

By Stephen Brown

ROME (Reuters) - Silvio Berlusconi, who has been biting his tongue for most of the April 13-14 election campaign, said on Tuesday his opponents on the left had no taste in women.

"The left has no taste, not even when it comes to women," he said. "As for our (women candidates) being more beautiful, I say that because in parliament they have no competition."

The favorite to win the parliamentary election also promised women would occupy a third of cabinet posts if he won, but his sexist comments provoked an angry response.

"Running for parliament is not the same as competing in the Miss Italy beauty contest," said parliamentarian Paola Balducci from the red/green Rainbow Alliance.

Berlusconi, the conservative People of Freedom party leader, cultivates a jocular image and told a television interviewer his background as a salesman had taught him that "you have to make a joke every 10-15 minutes. It's a way of keeping up morale".

In an unusually staid campaign that began when Romano Prodi resigned as premier in January after his coalition collapsed, Berlusconi has kept a poll lead of between 5-9 percent over his centre-left rival Walter Veltroni.

Berlusconi is Italy's third richest man and its first prime minister in 50 years to last the full term, from 2001-2006.

The 71-year-old delights in the company of glamorous women and has fielded some of the dancers who populate television shows on his Mediaset channels as candidates for parliament.

His long-suffering wife Veronica, 20 years his junior, got her revenge last year by reprimanding him for lechery in an open letter to a left-leaning newspaper. He publicly apologized.

His women supporters laughed when he called them the "menopause section" at a recent rally and urged them to bake cakes for campaigners, but Berlusconi infuriates others.

"Berlusconi continues to judge women only by their looks, the sign of a very backward, sexist mentality," said Silvana Mura, member of parliament for the centrist Italy of Values, the main ally of Veltroni's Democratic Party in the vote.

"In any other modern, democratic state one single comment like this would be enough to condemn a candidate for prime minister to certain defeat," she said. "I hope Italian women -- but not just women -- give Berlusconi the answer he deserves."

However, chauvinist behavior is unlikely to provoke widespread outrage in a country where elderly men dominate public life and women occupy only 2 percent of boardroom seats in state-owned firms.

Talk persists of Berlusconi and Veltroni forming a "Grand Coalition" if the vote is too close in the Senate, as expected.

They would share power long enough to reform electoral rules to change the system of broad alliances to a two-party system and then compete head-to-head in yet another vote.

(Additional reporting by Valentina Rusconi; Editing by Robert Woodward)