Berlusconi says stronger after vote, media doubtful

Rome: Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said yesterday he had been strengthened by a victory in parliament but commentators said he had only delayed a crisis and early elections, most likely in the spring.

In a confidence vote on Wednesday called to draw a line under the feud that has split the ruling centre-right, Berlusconi won 342 votes against 275 but needed the backing of supporters of his bitter rival Gianfranco Fini to get through.

In a speech to the Senate yesterday, in which he repeated the arguments made in the lower house a day earlier, Berlusconi said the result had left the government stronger and it would serve out its term until 2013.

"The majority is stronger ... the government is in a position to complete its term," he said.

The future of Berlusconi's government has been in the balance ever since July when he effectively expelled Fini from the People of Freedom party they created together in 2008 as a new force to unite the centre-right.

The split left Berlusconi without a secure parliamentary majority after Fini took more than 40 lower house deputies and senators with him and the confidence vote made it starkly clear that he now depends on them for his political survival.

"In reality, the government got a lifeline that was full of hidden dangers," commentator Massimo Franco wrote in the daily Corriere della Sera. "Silvio Berlusconi no longer has an independent majority."

Wednesday's vote, which followed weeks of cajoling and arm-twisting of unattached centrists and others, was intended to demonstrate that Berlusconi still has the numbers in parliament to govern but few observers were convinced.

No room for slip-ups

With elections before the end of the year now looking unlikely, attention has turned on the prospect of an election in the spring, the traditional season for going to the polls in Italy, with speculation focusing on March as a potential date.

"There is no room for a slip-up now. Otherwise we go to early elections," said Umberto Bossi, the mercurial leader of the federalist Northern League, which caused the collapse of Berlusconi's first government in 1994.

Berlusconi's allies in the League, who have steadily strengthened their regional powerbase, have made no secret of their eagerness for a vote which would offer them the chance to increase their national influence further.