Silvio Berlusconi has little chance of destabilising a centre-left government after Italy’s February election and outgoing premier Mario Monti is the most likely to become kingmaker, one of Italy’s top experts on voting trends said yesterday.

Political scientist Roberto D’Alimonte, a professor at the Luiss private university in Rome, said the most likely result of the election was a centre-left government strong enough to rule alone or in coalition with Monti’s centrists.

This prediction may reassure investors worried by the risk that Berlusconi could play a spoiler role after the election, returning Italy to the kind of instability that forced his replacement by Monti in November 201l as Italy careened towards a Greek-type meltdown.

The centre-left party of Pier Luigi Bersani, which is well ahead in opinion polls, is thought certain to win the lower house.

But the real battle will be in the Senate, where seats are decided on a regional basis.

Berlusconi’s strategy, fortified by an electoral pact this week with the federalist Northern League, is to win enough Senate seats to stop Bersani passing legislation.

D’Alimonte said that as things stand this is practically impossible.

Using an Ipsos opinion poll published on Tuesday from four battleground regions in the Senate race, and updated projections from a previous survey, D’Alimonte put forward 10 different scenarios in the financial daily Sole 24 Ore.

In only one of these scenarios could Berlusconi play a blocking role and D’Alimonte said this was highly unlikely.

“This means it is not credible that Berlusconi could play a decisive role in the Senate. It is Monti who could eventually hold this position,” D’Alimonte said.

Bersani has said his coalition, polling at just short of 40 per cent, or more than 10 points ahead of Berlusconi’s centre-right, can win both houses in the February 24-25 vote.

However he seemed less certain in a TV interview yesterday, and expressed concern that by entering the election Monti was helping Berlusconi.