ROME -- He looks like a quintessential Italian yuppie in his well-tailored suits and designer glasses. And in stark contrast to the stiff-armed salutes of his political forebears, he projects an image of cool moderation instead of ruthless authoritarianism.


To the dismay of allies and enemies alike, the political stock of Gianfranco Fini, the 42-year-old leader of the post-fascist National Alliance, is rising rapidly. According to some opinion surveys, the heir to the legacy of World War II fascist leader Benito Mussolini has even surpassed Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a tycoon turned public servant, as the politician with the highest approval rating in Italy.


Fini's telegenic appeal and shrewd political instincts have helped his party emerge from ostracism to respectability and a place in the ruling coalition in a matter of months. He has brushed aside frequent controversies -- such as his praise of Mussolini's statesmanship -- and now plans more frequent trips abroad, including to the United States, in a bid to reassure foreign audiences that aggressive Italian fascism is truly extinct.


"I think there are two reasons that may account for my popularity," Fini said in an interview. "Nobody in my party has been arrested on corruption charges, so we are seen as completely honest. And I think young people like me because I am the first major politician to represent their generation."


Berlusconi has been distracted by battles with Italy's corruption-fighting special magistrates, the leftist opposition, and his other coalition partner, Umberto Bossi of the federalist Northern League. But Fini has been quietly transforming his right-wing party into a broad conservative movement. He predicts that his alliance will soon occupy the vacuum left by the collapse of the once dominant Christian Democrats, now discredited in Italy's widespread corruption scandals.


Indeed, Fini appears to be positioning himself to pick up the pieces if Berlusconi, plagued by conflict of interest questions over his $7 billion Fininvest business empire, should feel compelled to leave government and return to the private sector.


A poll published Monday indicates that public approval of Berlusconi's free-market Forza Italia party has slipped to 23 percent, while support for Fini's National Alliance jumped nearly five points to 17 percent since it assumed five cabinet posts in May.


Fini recognizes that his biggest problem may be persuading skeptics that he and his party have truly severed their fascist connections and embraced a conservative philosophy rooted in democratic principles. To that end, Fini announced Sunday that the Italian Social Movement, founded in 1946 by officials of Mussolini's last-ditch rump regime, will be formally dissolved in January. It had served as the core party of the National Alliance, but Fini decided that the time had come to abolish it -- even at the risk of alienating many members -- because he wants to divorce his movement from its fascist ancestry. Even Mussolini's granddaughter Alessandra, a party member and legislator who has often clashed with Fini, has bestowed her blessing on the move. "If he had been living today, my grandfather would have done what Fini is doing," she said.


"I want to build a modern rightist movement, one that can be compared with the Gaullist party led by Jacques Chirac in France," Fini said. "We need to face the problems of today, not worry about the past. Right now, the priority is to reform the state by creating a new constitution and a system of direct elections."


But so far Fini appears to have failed to persuade many skeptics that he and his party have undergone a complete democratic conversion. The Northern League's Bossi, who is both Fini's political rival and ruling-coalition partner, railed in a letter to his party supporters about the dangers posed by "the resurrection of the fascist mummy covered by the veil of the National Alliance."


In parliament last week, two legislators from Fini's party provided embarrassing evidence that they have not yet dispensed with thuggish practices of the Fascist past, provoking a massive brawl that shut down the chamber.


Critics charge that Fini was an avowed fascist until two years ago, when he altered his message to attract votes from the center. And while he says he wants to see a thriving private economy, direct elections and fairer immigration laws, his true commitment to democracy remains untested.