(ANSA) - Milan, March 26 - League leader Matteo Salvini said Monday on the prospect of his becoming a minister and not premier that he didn't want to lead the government at all costs, saying "it isn't Salvini or death". "I'm interested in Italy changing," he told Telelombardia.

"I'm ready to front up in the first person and work 24 hours a day. But since I want change, it isn't Salvini or death".

"I'm ready, I think there is a team ready" to govern Italy," he said, dismissing ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi's description of an alliance between Salvini and the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) leader Luigi Di Maio as an improbable mythological animal called "stag-goat".

"Those who voted for us gave us trust to do things like abolishing the Fornero (pension) law and we'll see who agrees with us in parliament".

Salvini said Di Maio had shown he was "trustworthy" after a deal between the centre right and the M5S to share the parliamentary Speakers. "For now the Five Stars have shown they are trustworthy," Salvini said. "I judge people by their deeds, not words," he said.

"I appreciate people who say something and then do it", he said, adding that "that goes for (Silvio) Berlusconi too: in the end we closed the deal with a compact centre right".

