Oct. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Pierluigi Bersani, an ex-industry minister, will lead the political opposition to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi after winning yesterday’s Democratic Party primary.

Bersani won more than 50 percent of the vote, defeating Dario Franceschini, who has been interim leader of the party since former Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni resigned in February after the Democrats lost a regional election to Berlusconi’s People of Liberty party. Franceschini and Ignazio Marino, a senator who was the third candidate, both conceded before the release of official results.

“The Democratic Party will be an alternative party more than just an opposition party, because alternative implies opposition but opposition doesn’t always mean an alternative,” Bersani said at a press conference in Rome.

Bersani, 58, will try to unite a party that has failed to close the gap with Berlusconi even as the premier’s popularity has stumbled over a series of sex scandals and his handling of the worst recession in 60 years. In October, Berlusconi’s approval rating slipped to 45 percent, the lowest since his election in April 2008. Still, People of Liberty led the Democrats by 7 percentage points in the IPR Marketing poll released on Oct. 15.

More than 3 million people voted in the primary, Bersani said. The vote was marred by the Democratic Party’s own sex scandal. Piero Marrazzo, head of the regional government of Lazio, where Rome is located, temporarily removed himself from office hours before the polls opened after revelations that four police officers were arrested on allegations they tried to blackmail him with a video that is claimed to show Marrazzo with a transsexual prostitute. Marrazzo said the video is a fake and that he did nothing wrong.

Defeated Berlusconi

Bersani served in both governments led by Romano Prodi, the only man to have defeated Berlusconi in national elections in the past 15 years. As industry minister in 2007, Bersani sponsored legislation aimed at making Italy more competitive by cutting fees and easing licencing rules. As transport minister in 2001 he was involved in trying to get Alitalia SpA to form an alliance with Air France SA.

Both he and Prodi hail from Emilia Romagna, a region in central Italy that was traditionally a stronghold of the Communist Party. A philosophy graduate from Bologna University, where Prodi was teaching economics at the time, Bersani was a teacher before entering local politics and working his way up to become president of the region.

After Prodi bowed out of politics in 2008, Bersani was touted as a possible successor. He dropped out of the race to make way for Veltroni, who lost the election to Berlusconi before quitting in February. He was designated as finance minister in the opposition’s shadow cabinet.

Bersani is married and has two daughters.

To contact the reporter on this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson in Rome at fjackson@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 25, 2009 20:25 EDT