Italy's former premier Silvio Belusconi on Friday pledged to unite the centre-right ahead of polls next year to elect a new Rome mayor after Ignazio Marino's resignation over an expenses scandal.
"I will work from today onwards to offer electors a united and winning centre-right with a programme of government that can restore the capital's lost honour," said the 79-year-old billionaire media tycoon.
"Mayor Marino's long-overdue resignation give Italy's political forces a major opportunity to regain citizens' trust," stated Berlusconi, whose Forza Italia party lost support after his binding conviction for tax fraud.
Marino, 60, stood down late on Thursday after losing the support of his centre-left Democratic Party over a scandal centred on 20,000 euros of restaurant bills settled with a city hall credit card which the opposition said included private dinners.
In a video posted on Facebook Marino - who is considered by many to be honest but incompetent and unpopular - said he feared the return of graft to the capital.
"I cannot deny the great fear that past mentalities and the machinery of the mafia will immediately return to (city) government," he said.
His supporters suspect a concerted smear campaign linked to Marino's role in exposing a criminal network with links to the far right which had thrived under his conservative predecessor Gianni Alemanno.
Marino faced calls to resign last year for a series of unpaid parking tickets and saw his popularity slump after a major corruption scandal implicated several politicians, including Alemanno.
Police dismantled the alleged mafia network last year and dozens of local politicians and businessmen suspected of rigging tenders and siphoning off millions of euros destined for public services are due to go on trial next month.
Marino claims that his bid to clean up city corruption by ending all public contracts without tender was the nail in his coffin.
He already under pressure amid mounting public anger over the litter-strewn and pot-holed state of the crumbling city's streets, a failing public transport system and organised crime's infiltration of the municipal authorities.
Marino, who assumed office on 12 June, 2013, will remain in a caretaker role for three weeks, when a commissioner will be appointed to step into his shoes until municipal elections are held next Spring.
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