The survival of Berlusconi’s government hangs of the outcome of votes Tuesday in Parliament — a no-confidence motion brought by opponents in the lower Chamber of Deputies and a confidence motion brought by supporters in the Senate. Berlusconi has been predicting he will win.
If he loses, Berlusconi will have to resign, halfway through the five-year term of Parliament.
Gianfranco Fini, the co-founder of Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party who abandoned the coalition last summer, predicted the premier would lose.
Even if Berlusconi should pull it off, his majority in the legislature would be so thin that the government would be effectively paralyzed, and important reforms, including ones to invigorate Italy’s stagnant economy, would never be accomplished, Fini told a newsmakers show on state TV.
Even if “he ties or wins by a vote, the (political) crisis will remain for the government,” said Fini, who is president of the Chamber of Deputies.
But Berlusconi doesn’t care, Fini, contended, because he “doesn’t want to govern, he wants to remain in the premier’s office” and “avoid” trials.
Fini claimed Berlusconi wants to keep benefiting from the law halting his trials in Milan on corruption and tax fraud charges. Berlusconi insists he is the innocent target of left-leaning prosecutors who want to sabotage his government.
Critics say the government-sponsored legislation was designed to rescue Berlusconi from his judicial woes. The premier argues that Italians who voted for him deserve to have him do his job without the distraction of trials.
Italy’s Constitutional Court is expected to rule early next year on whether the law protecting the premier from trial violates guarantees of equal rights for all citizens.
Berlusconi’s camp has been trying to woo back some Fini supporters as well as some centrists outside the government coalition in hopes of hanging on to a majority in the legislature.
