Italian PM Letta seeks parliament confidence vote after Berlusconi crisis
(Reuters) – Silvio Berlusconi fought to hold his fractious center-right party together on Tuesday a day before a showdown in the Italian parliament that will decide whether Prime Minister Enrico Letta can survive in office.
Sources in Letta’s center-left Democratic Party said he had not yet decided whether to call a formal vote of confidence in parliament on Wednesday or hand in his resignation to President Giorgio Napolitano if he does not feel he would win.
The decision will depend on developments in Berlusconi’s center-right People of Freedom party (PDL), which is on the brink of splitting after the 77-year-old media tycoon pulled his ministers out of the ruling coalition at the weekend.
Tensions have risen markedly since Berlusconi was convicted of tax fraud in August, opening the way for him to be expelled from parliament. He has threatened repeatedly to bring down Letta’s government and is pressing for new elections.
The uncertainty over the confidence vote adds another level of complication to an exceptionally confused situation with a group of 20 or more PDL dissidents considering forming a breakaway group that could support the government.
Letta’s Democratic Party (PD) has a commanding majority in the lower house but in the Senate it would need a couple of dozen votes from the PDL or opposition parties including the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement.
