Italy’s Bersani Seeks Monti’s Job in Move From Unions to Center

Italy’s Pier Luigi Bersani, the front-runner to succeed Prime Minister Mario Monti, wants markets to know he has fully abandoned the Communist allegiance of his youth.

“He is a former communist, very former,” said Gian Maria Gros-Pietro, former Eni SpA chairman who as chief of Italy’s portfolio of state-owned companies in the 1990s worked on asset sales with then-Industry Minister Bersani. “He has the sensitivity to understand what the electorate thinks and what are the right moves.”