[attach id=219916 size="large"]Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti. Photo: AFP[/attach]

Italy was preparing for early elections yesterday after Prime Minister Mario Monti said he would soon resign and Silvio Berlusconi announced he would run for the top job for the sixth time in two decades.

Monti said he would step down as soon as Parliament approved next year’s budget, which means elections could now be held as early as February – well before the Government’s mandate runs out in late April.

“I have matured the conviction that we could not continue like this any longer,” Monti was quoted as saying in an interview with top-selling daily Corriere della Sera, a day after his dramatic move.

Monti said he took his decision after Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PDL) party withdrew their support for him last week. Party chief Angelino Alfano told Parliament on Friday that Italy’s debt, unemployment and tax rates had risen while the economy had plunged since Monti had taken over in November 2011.

Monti leads a non-elected cabinet of technocrats. Alfano went back on the offensive yesterday saying Monti’s Government had made “grave errors”.

“We wanted to signal Italians’ unease with his economic policies,” he said.

Asked about several items of legislation still before Parliament, Alfano said his party would only back the budget and a decree to keep open a troubled steel mill in southern Italy that employs thousands of people.