Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi confirmed yesterday that he will not run in the next elections in 2013 and will hand over the reigns of his party to Justice Minister Angelino Alfano.

“I will not be a candidate for the post of Prime Minister in the next elections,” the 74-year-old media mogul said in an interview with the left-wing Repubblica newspaper.

“The centre-right candidate will be Alfano. If I could I would already give it up,” he added.

Mr Berlusconi said he intended to participate in the campaign “to help” Mr Alfano and play the “noble father”.

“But at 77, I could not be Prime Minister,” he said.

The Premier had already suggested in April that he would not stand again, during a dinner with foreign journalists, when he said he did not plan to have any “operative role” in the elections.

Weakened by a humiliating setback in local elections at the end of May - when his Party of Freedom candidate was ousted from her mayoral post in Milan – Mr Berlusconi confirmed the 41-year-old Mr Alfano as his successor.

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