Ministers loyal to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s former ally Gianfranco Fini resigned from the Italian government, taking the embattled media tycoon and his conservative administration a step closer to a do-or-die vote in Parliament.
Fini, a former neofascist who split away from the prime minister in July, warned that his followers would pull out unless Berlusconi agreed to resign and clear the way for a new government with a revised programme. Instead, the prime minister announced that he would go only if forced to by a defeat in Parliament.
Two no-confidence motions have been tabled by left-wing and centrist MPs and it is expected they will be put to a vote in the first half of December, once Parliament has approved next year’s budget.
Italy has so far dodged the problems endured by other heavily indebted European economies, but politicians of all stripes are keen not to alarm the markets by letting the Âpublic accounts fall prey to party manoeuvring.
Since Fini’s defection Berlusconi has continued to enjoy a majority in the upper house, the senate, but not in the chamber of deputies.
He told a conference of his party last Saturday that if he was defeated in the lower house he would ask the president to dissolve only that chamber and call what in effect would be half of a general election.
“Obviously, it is a prerogative of the head of state, but it is technically possible,” said Enrico La Loggia, a constitutional expert and Berlusconi senator.
The resignations included a minister, a deputy minister and two junior ministers. Paradoxically, their departures strengthen Berlusconi’s position because he now has four tempting positions with which to lure opposition politicians over to his side. — Guardian News & Media 2010