Mussolini admitted she was unprepared for her hunger strike

She called the move "a coup d'etat", and said she would carry on her protest until a court decides on her appeal.

An Rome court last week ruled that more than 800 signatures collected by the far-right Social Alternative movement were false or forged.

Alessandra Mussolini was due to run for president of the Lazio region.

The post is currently held by Francesco Storace of the National Alliance, the post-fascist party Ms Mussolini belonged to until a few years ago.

But in 2003 she fell out with party leader Gianfranco Fini after he criticised Italy's fascist past during an official visit to Israel, and went on to found her own party, Liberta d'Azione, with which she won a seat at the European Parliament last year.

Mr Fini, the then deputy prime minister and a key ally of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, went on to become foreign minister.

His party has moved into the political mainstream and after an effort to break itself free from its fascist past.

Ms Mussolini, who announced she would wait for the verdict in a van outside the court, acknowledged she was unprepared for a hunger strike.

'All faked, incomplete'

"I had stomach pain yesterday, so I didn't really eat enough beforehand," she told Reuters news agency.

"I'm anxious, nervous over this scandal."

On Saturday, a court ruled that signatures collected by or on behalf of her party to run in the Lazio region included fake signatures of celebrities, judges and an army general.

The elections are scheduled for 3 and 4 April and will take place in 14 of Italy's 20 regions.

Ms Mussolini believes mainstream parties have boycotted her list, and argued her party had been turned into a scapegoat.

"The signatures are good - they're like those from all other parties," she said.

"They're all faked, false, strange, incomplete," she added.

An investigation has been launched in the northern region of Lombardy, where magistrates are looking into suspected irregularities in the signatures collected by four different groupings - including Ms Mussolini's.