Rome Letter Paddy AgnewOn the first truly warm, spring weekend of the year, there were plenty of pilgrims and tourists visiting the splendid sixth-century church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin in Rome last Saturday. Just down from the Forum and on the banks of the Tiber, this church is famous for its "Bocca della Verita" (Mouth of Truth), a classic drain cover in the form of a face set into the wall of the church's portico.
Medieval legend had it that whenever a liar put his hand into the mouth, the mighty jaws snapped shut (a moment immortalised by Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday).
Not many of the tourists seemed to notice that, just 100 yards away, the Italian general election campaign was in full swing. The far right Alternativa Sociale (AS) party of Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of "Il Duce", was holding one of its final Rome rallies before this weekend's vote. Significantly, it was not just the tourists but also the electorate who appeared to be little interested, since there were, at most, only 200 people in attendance.
Given that AS is in effect a one-person-party and that the one person in question, Alessandra Mussolini herself, was not on the platform, such indifference was hardly surprising - a case of "Hamlet without the princess".
The faithful few, mainly young people, stood around quietly and politely applauded the two parliamentary candidates, Mino Damato and Prince Lillio Sforza Ruspoli. Only when a small group of blackshirts from neo-Fascist ally, Forza Nuovo, came along, making fascist salutes and shouting patriotic slogans, was there a dark reminder of what AS might represent. On the warm, dozy afternoon that was in it, the black shirts seemed incongruous. So much so, that even the rally organisers quickly moved them on.
Had Ms Mussolini been there herself, things were sure to have been a deal livelier. Some of the most outrageous sound-bites of the electoral campaign have been provided by her. During a TV debate last month with Vladimir Luxuria, a transsexual candidate running for Rifondazione Communista, Ms Mussolini announced that she was proud to be a fascist, adding: "Better to be a fascist than a queer."
When relations between Italy and Libya became strained in February, she again entered the fray. After Libyan rioters had burned down the Italian consulate in Benghazi, allegedly because cabinet minister Roberto Calderoli, of the Northern League, had gone on television wearing a T-shirt depicting one of the controversial Danish cartoons about the Prophet Muhammad, Ms Mussolini commented: "If it hadn't been for my grandfather, they would still be riding camels with turbans on their heads. They're the ones who should be paying us compensation, because it was a positive colonisation. Fascism exported democracy, as well as roads, houses and schools."
Not surprisingly Libyan leader Col Muammar Gadafy objected, calling her "glorification" of the Italian "military occupation and colonisation" of Libya "unacceptable".
With her good looks, her blond hair, her less than politically correct tongue, not to mention her remarkable family tree - cinema icon Sophia Loren just happens to be her aunt - Alessandra Mussolini was never likely to go unnoticed. She might well have become a leading figure in the ex-fascist Alleanza Nazionale (AN), now led by foreign minister Gianfranco Fini and the party where her political career started when elected to parliament in 1992. Mr Fini, however, scuppered that plan by consistently moving his party towards the centre, far from its fascist past, and far from those nostalgic for "Il Duce". When Mr Fini described fascism as "total evil" and apologised for the 1938 racial laws during a 2003 visit to Israel, an outraged Ms Mussolini split with AN, setting up her own party, AS.
Were it not that the centre-right government of Silvio Berlusconi passed an electoral reform last December, reintroducing a 100 per cent proportional representation system, Ms Mussolini might have been running in these elections as leader of aindependent party, instead of being part of Mr Berlusconi's centre-right coalition.
With the new system, both coalitions need every ally they can get, especially one which polled 1.2 per cent at the European Parliamentary elections in 2004 (Alessandra Mussolini received 133,000 preferences).
With Ms Mussolini on her AS slate, however, also come two tiny but controversial neo-fascist movements, Forza Nuova and the New MSI (ex-fascist party). For much of the campaign, Ms Mussolini has been on the hustings with Forza Nuovo leader Roberto Fiore, a man who in February described Adolf Hitler as a "statesman who also committed some crimes". New MSI leader Gaetano Saya was hardly less controversial when telling Corriere Della Sera that "immigrants are a danger to the purity of the race".
Perhaps it is just as well that according to most opinion polls, only 1 per cent of Italians will vote AS.