ROME, 18 March 2005 — A second crisis in the space of a few days capped a bad week for Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, leaving his center-right coalition weakened just two weeks away from important regional elections.

The resignation of a key minister, announced late Thursday, came only hours after Berlusconi was lambasted by the opposition and the press for being forced by his allies to revise his plans to begin withdrawing Italian troops from Iraq.

Reforms Minister Roberto Calderoli, a member of the federalist Northern League, handed in his resignation after accusing coalition partners of “sabotaging” his party’s efforts to push through constitutional reform granting more powers to Italy’s regions.

The press however said the move was likely a ruse, and predicted that Calderoli would remain in government.

However, Italy’s media said the row would jolt Berlusconi’s four-party coalition just two weeks before the April 3-4 elections for 14 of Italy’s 20 regional governments, in which 40 million Italians are eligible to vote.

“The Lega plays the resignation card,” said the best-selling daily Corriere della Sera, adding that it was likely that Calderoli would be persuaded to remain in government after what it called a gesture aimed principally at his own electorate.

Calderoli’s party colleague, Welfare Minister Roberto Maroni, also threatened to quit unless the legislation currently before the Senate was passed before Easter, which falls on March 27.

For the forth successive time since it began to discuss the legislation, the Senate failed to reach a quorum on Thursday, sparking Calderoli’s anger.

A new sitting to discuss the reforms has been scheduled for Monday.

The Northern League, or “La Lega”, formerly supported the secession of Italy’s rich, industrialized north on the grounds that tax revenue raised there too often went to support the poorer, less-productive “Mezzogiorno”, or south of the country.

Berlusconi, who leads Italy’s biggest party Forza Italia, has periodicically been faced with threats by the tiny but influential League — which polled five percent in last year’s European elections — to quit his often fractious coalition. Up to now, reason and self-preservation has always prevailed.

“The impression is that Calderoli and Northern League leader Umberto Bossi are making an electoral coup,” said the Corriere in an editorial, adding that by baring its teeth in this fashion just before the election, the League is showing its electorate that it is battling to push through their reforms. The League brought down Berlusconi’s first government in 1994, when it walked out in a row over reforms, but since then it has remained a loyal though often difficult coalition partner.

Rome’s conservative daily Il Messaggero saw Calderoli’s move as a ploy to concentrate the minds of his coalition partners on pushing through the legislation.

“In politics, blackmail is a weapon which is abused, the only one that works in a coalition government,” said the newspaper.

“It is probable that Calderoli will quickly make an official announcement saying that he had only ‘hoped’ to resign,” jibed the left-wing La Repubblica, referring to Berlusconi’s seeming about-turn on withdrawing Italian troops from Iraq.

The prime minister announced the pullout as a fact, only to turn it into a wish following a phone call from US President George W. Bush.