AS WAS widely predicted, the centre-right government of prime minister Silvio Berlusconi last night survived a key parliamentary test when the lower house rejected a “no-confidence” motion in junior justice minister Giacomo Caliendo.
At the end of a typically rowdy and at times ill-tempered debate, the government won 299 votes, with 229 for the opposition and some 75 deputies, including former members of the governmental Freedom People party (PDL), opting to abstain.
The no-confidence motion in Mr Caliendo had been tabled by the two biggest opposition parties, the Democratic Party (PD) and the Italy of Values (IDV) formation.
Given that the vote coincided with a burgeoning crisis within the PDL, prompted by the break between Mr Berlusconi and his party’s co-founder, lower house speaker Gianfranco Fini, last night’s vote was expected to indicate the current government’s strength, if not to bring it down.
In that sense, the mathematics speak loud and clear. If the “abstentionists”, including Mr Fini’s new “Future and Liberty” (FLI) party, had voted with the official opposition, then the government would clearly have been defeated.
This was a point underlined by the IDV’s leader, former investigating magistrate Antonio Di Pietro, who said: “The government no longer has a majority . . . and it should draw its own conclusions. Instead, they will spend all August on a shopping spree, trying to buy deputies . . .”
Earlier during the parliamentary debate, Mr Di Pietro had called for the government to resign, saying: “We’re not looking here just for the resignation of Caliendo but we feel that Berlusconi should pack his bags and clear off . . . However, he remains where he is, like the new Nero on his golden terrace with his hired maidservants . . .”
During what was inevitably a heated debate, PDL deputy Marco Martinelli and his former party colleague Aldo Di Biagio, now with the FLI, had to be separated by ushers after a robust exchange of insults appeared to be heading towards a fistfight. The differences between the two deputies were exacerbated by the fact that the two factions continue to share the same parliamentary benches.
Although the opposition had called on the PDL dissidents to vote with them, that call was clearly rejected by Benedetto Della Vedova, deputy leader of the new FLI group. He justified his party’s abstention by saying that the Caliendo case was different from that of Nicola Cosentino and Aldo Brancher, two other Berlusconi government ministers who have resigned in the last two months.
Mr Della Vedova did however indicate that his party would not hesitate to vote against the government if it disagreed with future proposed measures. The centrist UDC, led by Pierferdinando Casini, also abstained but it too is likely to take a “wait and see” attitude opting, in Italian political parlance, to “roast the government slowly on a hot spit”. Following last night’s vote, parliament now breaks up for the summer recess before returning in September for what seems sure to be an even hotter autumn.