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| Europe | ||
| Berlusconi Coalition near Collapse | ||
| 2005-04-16 | ||
| from yesterday, but still important The centre-right Italian government led by Silvio Berlusconi, prime minister, was on the verge of disintegration on Friday after one of the four parties in his coalition decided to withdraw from his cabinet. The announcement by the centrist UDC party plunged Italy into its deepest political crisis in four years at a time when its economy is mired in trouble and its public finances are under criticism from the European Commission and financial markets.
Leaders of the centre-left opposition demanded Mr Berlusconi's immediate resignation and said that, if he proved unable to form a new government backed by a confidence vote in parliament, Italy should hold an early general election. But the prime minister, who has held power since June 2001 at the helm of Italy's longest-serving government since the second world war, suggested he was not yet ready to resign. "I'm afraid that you're not going to get rid of me that easily," he said. The crisis arose after Mr Berlusconi's Forza Italia party and his allies crashed to defeat two weekends ago in regional elections which saw the opposition win 11 out of 13 contests and sweep the popular vote by 52 per cent to the centre-right's 44.8 per cent. Marco Follini, the UDC leader and deputy premier, left the government after Mr Berlusconi rejected his demand for a new administration and a change of economic policy. But Mr Follini said the UDC would offer support for Mr Berlusconi from the backbenches of parliament, indicating that the party had not yet decided to pull the plug on the government and force an early election. Mr Berlusconi, conscious that a snap election could rout Forza Italia and inflict irreparable damage on his political career, faced the prospect of submitting his resignation to Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, Italy's head of state, and then trying to cobble together a new government. But even if he were to take this step and continue as prime minister until May 2006, when the next national elections are due, it seemed certain that he would have to abandon or modify many policies dear to his heart. These include changes to the judicial system, condemned by opponents as a threat to the Italian judiciary's independence, and an electoral reform proposal that could have boosted his chances in an election. A question also hangs over a constitutional reform designed to grant more executive power to the prime minister and more autonomy to Italy's regions - a key demand of the populist Northern League, now the only minor party still fully loyal to Mr Berlusconi. Commentators cautioned against predicting Mr Berlusconi's demise, but some said he had fallen short of the goal he set himself in 2001 to reinvigorate Italy's economy with the entrepreneuralism that made him a billionaire media magnate. He didn't exactly have the support of the socialist apparachniks in that ...
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| Posted by:too true |