Italian centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi. Photo: Reuters

Italy’s Senate will hold an open vote next month on whether to expel Silvio Berlusconi from Parliament because of a tax fraud conviction after an upper house committee narrowly rejected the fomer prime minister’s bid to make the ballot secret.

The decision has been the subject of intense wrangling, with the billionaire media magnate’s political enemies fearing a secret vote might allow him to escape expulsion through backroom dealings.

A special Senate panel voted by 7 to 6 in favour of an open vote, overruling objections from Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PDL) party, which argued that votes on individual senators are traditionally held in secret.

“The panel has voted but it’s given birth to a constitutional monster,” PDL Senator Anna Maria Bernini told reporters. “This was a decision aimed against one person.”

No date has yet been set for the vote, but the Senate agenda is full until November 22, requiring a change to the timetable if the ballot is to be held before then.

Panel gave birth to constitutional monster

Berlusconi is expected to lose his seat in the upper house after Italy’s top court found him guilty in August of being at the centre of a giant tax fraud scheme at his Mediaset television empire.

But the expulsion procedure is proving long and divisive, with the PDL repeatedly trying to delay the vote, which would strip its leader of parliamentary immunity and leave him open to arrest in a string of other cases.

Yesterday’s decision prompted a flood of anger from Berlusconi’s supporters, stoking tensions in Prime Minister Enrico Letta’s unwieldy coalition between the PDL and the centre-left Democratic Party (PD).

“Democracy was murdered in the Senate today,” said Daniela Santanche, one of the 77-year-old leader’s most hardline loyalists. “How can anyone still maintain on the basis of some false idea of stability that this government serves the country?”

The full Senate, where there is a majority in favour of expelling Berlusconi, must vote before theformer prime minister can be stripped of his seat under a law passed last year banning convicted criminals from Parliament.

The showdown was delayed by disagreement between the PDL and Letta’s PD, and aggravated tensions between Berlusconi hardliners pressing for a rupture with Letta and moderates around PDL secretary Angelino Alfano who want to support the government. PDL moderates attacked the decision of an open vote, saying the PD yielded to pressure from the 5-Star Movement of Beppe Grillo.