Enlarge imageROME (Reuters) - An Italian electoral body has barred the granddaughter of Italian wartime dictator Benito Mussolini from standing in local elections in April, ruling she had forged signatures needed to allow her to stand in the vote.
Alessandra Mussolini, leader of the far-right Social Alternative movement, had intended to run for the presidency of Lazio region -- one of 14 regions being contested in key elections to be held on April 3 and 4.
Mussolini said she would appeal the ruling by the electoral commission which ruled that 871 of the signatures of support each candidate must present had been forged.
"This is an affront to democracy, if they’re going to exclude the Social Alternative they have to exclude all the parties because all the signature lists are false," Mussolini told Reuters.
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"If the system collapses, then it collapses for everyone," she said.
Mussolini founded the Social Alternative in 2003 when she left right-wing government party, the National Alliance, after its leader, Gianfranco Fini, paid a visit to Israel and publicly condemned her grandfather, symbolically cutting the party’s ties to fascism.
Mussolini, a former aspiring actress and model, is a colourful figure who often defends her grandfather’s reputation.
Her exclusion from the vote in the central Lazio region, which includes Rome, could prove decisive in the neck-and-neck race between incumbent President Francesco Storace, of the National Alliance, and the centre-left’s Antonio Marrazzo, a popular TV journalist.
Mussolini was expected to take votes from Storace, who made no secret of his glee at her exclusion. "Bye, bye, Marrazzo," Storace said.
