Berlusconi U-turn secures Italian government survival

{{Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta won a confidence vote in parliament on Wednesday after Silvio Berlusconi, facing revolt in his own center-right party, backtracked on threats to bring down the government.}}

As dozens of center-right senators prepared to defy their media magnate leader and salvage the left-right coalition led by Letta, Berlusconi staged an abrupt U-turn and said he too would back the center-left prime minister, just days after he sparked the crisis by pulling his ministers out of Letta’s cabinet.

After a sometimes fiery debate in the upper house, in which he faced repeated accusations of sowing chaos in a personal bid to stave off expulsion from parliament over a tax fraud conviction, Berlusconi said: “We have decided, not without some internal strife, to support the government.”

Financial markets reacted positively. But the end of this crisis, seven months after an inconclusive election, leaves question marks over Letta’s ability to address deep problems in Italy’s economy which are troubling its partners in the euro.

Letta, who had appeared on course for victory with PDL help even before the startling turn of events in the chamber, reacted with visible surprise to Berlusconi’s climbdown, laughing slightly and shaking his head in disbelief.

Berlusconi covered his face with his hands after he sat down; in what may be one of his last acts in the Senate before the procedure for his removal begins on Friday, the 77-year-old then cast his vote for Letta, a prime minister whom he had accused a day earlier of lacking credibility.

Later, as he drove away, he was heckled by onlookers.

“What happened today should be shown in a theatre not in parliament,” Federico D’Inca, a deputy from the opposition 5-Star Movement said during a debate in the lower house, where Letta won a second confidence vote in the evening.

Backed by his own Democratic Party (PD) and by Berlusconi’s People of Freedom (PDL), the prime minister won the Senate vote by 235 to 70. He then won by 435 to 162 in the lower chamber, where the PD holds a strong majority.

{agencies}