ROME, October 22 (RIA Novosti) - Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Wednesday that he is not leaving politics and hopes his party Forza Italia will win the next general election.
"I came back to the game to win. After all I have done in my life I cannot simply leave the political arena," Berlusconi said as quoted by TMNews agency.
"Every day I work all day long, because I want our Forza Italia party, renewed and strengthened, to win [the election]," he added.
Berlusconi also expressed his opinion that current Matteo Renzi's government will be in power until 2018, so there is enough time to transform the Forza Italia party.
The next Italian general election will be held in 2018. It will elect 630 members of the Chamber of Deputies for the 18th Parliament of Italy, as well as 215 elective members of the Italian Senate.
In the 2013 general election, the center-right political party Forza Italia ended up in 3rd place, losing votes to Renzi's Democratic party and the Five Star Movement party. Forza Italia currently has 69 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 66 seats in the Senate.
Silvio Berlusconi is one of Italy's most controversial leaders, who has been embroiled in a number of scandals. He was convicted of tax fraud in 2013 and served his sentence by doing unpaid community work. Berlusconi was also charged with child sexual abuse in 2011, and abuse of office in 2012. He has also been suspected of mafia collusion, money laundering, corruption, bribery, witness tampering, and false accounting.
