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Italy plunges back into political chaos
Italy's government was thrown back into crisis on Monday when Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi denied he had agreed a major reshuffle that would appease rebel ministers and avoid a coalition collapse.
Earlier in the day, ministers said Berlusconi had accepted demands to form an entirely new government and policy strategy for the last year of the administration's term -- avoiding the need for a snap election he would probably lose.
But after the hour-long meeting, he told reporters he had not resigned and there had been no agreement on a reshuffle -- leaving confusion over whether the crisis, the worst in Berlusconi's four-year tenure, was over.
Talking briefly to reporters before going into Italy's lower house of parliament to meet the speaker of the Chamber, Pier Ferdinando Casini, Berlusconi was in playful mood.
"A surprise? This time it was me who surprised you," he said. When asked whether there was an agreement on a reshuffle, he answered: "We will see how parliament reacts."
The crisis began on Friday when one of the four cabinet parties, the Union of Christian Democrats (UDC), quit the coalition demanding major changes after the center-right suffered heavy losses in regional elections.
MOCKERY
Backroom talks between the parties appeared to have borne fruit on Sunday, when the UDC believed it had enough assurances to return to government.
After Berlusconi denied any deal, a UDC source told Reuters: "This is a hardening of his position. It was clear that we couldn't win 10-nil, but this makes everything much more difficult."
Berlusconi is keen to be the first prime minister to serve a full term as head of a single administration and has always resisted demands to resign and form a new government.
It may be that he will now try to plough on without a guaranteed majority in parliament, hoping for ad hoc support from the UDC.
That would put difficult legislation, such as a pending constitutional reform to devolve powers to the regions, at the mercy of the UDC dissenters who dislike much of the bill.
Berlusconi said he would explain the situation to parliament's upper house, the Senate, "probably by the end of the week."
The center-left opposition said Italy faced political confusion.
"This crisis is turning into an indecent farce," said Piero Fassino, head of the main opposition party Democrats of the Left. "The prime minister is in a single stroke making a mockery of the his government, the institutions and the entire country."
Berlusconi faces an uphill struggle to regain the votes that put him in power in 2001, after losing badly at most subsequent regional, European and by-elections as the economy has stalled.
A fresh sign of the challenge was provided by voters in the small southern region of Basilicata in a regional election held on Sunday and Monday, two weeks after he lost 11 of 13 regions that went to the polls around the country. The center-left won Basilicata with some 70 percent of the vote, exit polls indicated, increasing its majority and taking the overall tally of regions to 12-2 in the center-left's favor. |
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