Members of Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right party yesterday openly warned they would bring down the government if their centre-left coalition allies voted next month to expel the former prime minister from Parliament.
Relations between Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PDL) party and Prime Minister Enrico Letta’s Democratic Party (PD) are close to breaking point ahead of the vote in the Senate on whether to expel the 76-year-old over his tax fraud conviction.
“Early elections will be inevitable if the PD votes to remove Berlusconi and in the case that President (Giorgio) Napolitano decides that no other viable majorities exist,” PDL Senator Sandro Bondi told Corriere della Sera after a party summit on Saturday.
Bondi, a close ally of Berlusconi, said the PDL had agreed at the meeting to withdraw their ministers from the government if the billionaire loses his place as a senator, and that they were ready to return to elections with the media mogul as their prime ministerial candidate.
Letta has warned that the collapse of the government would undermine a nascent economy recovery as Italy tries to emerge from its longest post-war recession. He has nevertheless expressed confidence the coalition’s problems can be overcome.
The Premier’s fragile left-right government has been racked by disagreements since the two main parties were forced to form a coalition after a deadlocked national election in February.
He has been struggling to reconcile competing demands for tax cuts and job-creating measures to pull the economy out of the two-year recession with pledges to shore up battered public finances and cut state debt.
Another of Berlusconi’s loyal allies, PDL deputy Daniela Santanche, told La Repubblica daily that the hawks of the PDL had won the debate at the party summit in his Milan villa on Saturday and that Letta’s government was “finished”.
“There are no alternatives to a government crisis because others have decided to deny the political feasibility of a leader that millions of Italians voted for,” Santanche said.