Right-wing party eyes Italy posts

Mr Calderoli is hoping to become deputy prime minister

Italy's right-wing Northern League has said it expects to win key positions in the new cabinet of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Firebrand party leader Umberto Bossi, who has toppled a Berlusconi coalition government in the past, said he hoped to become reforms minister.

He tipped Roberto Calderoli, whose antics have enraged Muslims in Italy, to become deputy prime minister.

But Mr Berlusconi has said that no definite decisions have yet been taken.

Crime focus

"We're talking to everyone. Yesterday the League told me what they wanted but nothing has been decided," Mr Berlusconi said late on Monday.

"I'll be taking the decisions and presenting my proposals to the president of the republic," he said, adding that there would be "a few surprises".

But Mr Bossi was quoted as telling Italy's La Stampa newspaper that he had his eye on several key ministries.

"Reforms, security, defence of agriculture - these are the reasons why people voted for us," he said.

Roberto Calderoli is a controversial figure who provoked outrage by threatening to walk a pet pig to the site of a new mosque last September.

Mr Bossi said the League's Roberto Maroni, who has proposed citizens' defence squads to tackle crime, would be interior minister.

The Northern League party played a key role in Mr Berlusconi's return to power this month, doubling its share of the national vote and winning 8% of all ballots.

It campaigned on a platform of increased federalism for the country's prosperous north and taking a tough stance on crime and immigration.