Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi issued a challenge to his rivals on Friday, saying he would go to the polls by the end of the year if his troubled center-right government loses a confidence motion next month.
Berlusconi no longer enjoys a guaranteed majority in parliament after a dramatic split last month with former ally Gianfranco Fini, the powerful speaker of the lower house, who commands the support of 34 deputies and 10 senators.
The prime minister intends to call a confidence vote when parliament resumes in September, defying his conservative rivals to fall into line or push the country into elections which would otherwise not be due until 2013.
If he loses the confidence motion on a five-point program of measures from tax reform to help the underdeveloped southern regions of Italy, President Giorgio Napolitano would either try to appoint another government or call an election.
Berlusconi dismissed the possibility of an interim government appointed by the president and said a snap poll would be the only realistic possibility.
“I do not think there would be any alternative for the good of the country,” he told reporters after a meeting with senior leaders from his People of Freedom party in Rome.
He read out a 10-page program of lower taxes, reform of the justice system to ensure quicker trials, more financial autonomy for the regions and a crackdown on organized crime and defended the government’s handling of the economic crisis.
Asked whether the election would have to be held by the end of the year, he said: “Absolutely, yes. Anything else would be wasting time and very negative for the country.”
Berlusconi said surveys he had seen indicated the People of Freedom and its coalition partners in the Northern League could expect to win more than 50 percent support.
However, Fini’s supporters, appear unwilling to trigger early polls. Italo Bocchino, one of Fini’s main lieutenants, said Berlusconi had offered no surprises and his group would not vote against the prime minister.
“We will vote for this program and support the government,” he was quoted as saying on the Web site of the newspaper Corriere della Sera, adding that the measures mostly corresponded with proposals made by Fini himself.
The long-standing rivalry between the two leading figures of the Italian center-right has come to a head over a series of corruption scandals, which forced two ministers and a junior minister to resign.
Following the split last month, the summer lull provided a break in hostilities, with the rival camps reduced to a sour exchange of jibes and accusations through the media, but Berlusconi’s declaration has opened a new phase in the battle.
Fini has used his position as speaker of the lower house to keep up a barrage of criticism as one Berlusconi ally after another has come under pressure from magistrates investigating accusations of graft and political influence-peddling.
His attitude and his insistence on the need for ethical standards has enraged Berlusconi and few believe a reconciliation in the conservative camp is possible.
Pier Luigi Bersani, head of the opposition Democratic Party, accused Berlusconi of telling “fairy tales” and said he was incapable of continuing in government, but the chronically divided center-left has posed little threat to the government so far.
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