Italian prime minister Enrico Letta on Saturday accused centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi of an "irresponsible act of folly" motivated "exclusively by his personal problems", following the media tycoon's decision to withdraw his five People of Freedom (PDL) ministers from the coalition with the Democratic Party (PD).
By effectively pulling the plug on the five-month-old Letta government, Mr Berlusconi has plunged Italy into the uncertainty of a government crisis.
Ever since Mr Berlusconi's conviction for tax fraud last June, the fate of the Letta government has looked precarious. In an attempt to persuade either President Giorgio Napolitano or PD government partners to afford him some form of judicial "pardon", Mr Berlusconi has blown hot and cold for the last two months, regularly threatening to pull down the government. Mr Berlusconi refuses to accept the Supreme Court's ruling: a four-year prison sentence (cut to one year) and a ban from public office.
'Criminal ideology'
As the deadline for his possible expulsion from parliament (over the conviction) gets nearer, Mr Berlusconi has upped the crisis. Last week, he accused his government partners of having a "criminal ideology" and of plotting to "eliminate" him by judicial means. Furthermore, he called on his MPs to resign from parliament.
That call, however, came at the very moment that Mr Letta was in New York talking to investors on Wall Street, trying to present a picture of a stable Italy headed for a 2014 of guaranteed economic growth. A furious prime minister called the Berlusconi speech “humiliating”, not for him but rather for Italy since it made the promise of stability look rather thin.
Accordingly, when the Italian government met on Friday evening, it was already in full crisis mode. In that context, Mr Letta refused to do any government business, thus failing to block a 1 per cent rise in VAT.
Mr Berlusconi immediately claimed he had pulled out of government because a prime commitment in the agreed coalition programme – no VAT rise – had not been respected.
Mr Letta, however, sent out a tweet late on Friday night urging Italians “not to swallow” that version of events. In a statement on the forzasilvio.it website yesterday, Mr Berlusconi indicated the real cause of his move, saying that he would willingly retire from public life were it not for the fact that he would be giving his approval “to an undermined democracy, where it is the magistrates and not the electorate who decide who should govern”.
At this point, the crisis is headed for a confidence vote in parliament, probably tomorrow. If, as seems likely, the Letta government is defeated on that vote, this may not necessarily mean the dissolution of parliament and a subsequent general election.
Rather, Mr Napolitano could call on Mr Letta, or someone else, to attempt another short-term government, with the mission of enacting electoral reform.
Media reaction
Inevitably, Italian media comment yesterday, with the exception of those outlets owned by Mr Berlusconi himself, was highly critical of the centre-right leader.
Italy's financial daily, Il Sole 24 Ore, owned by the Confederation of Italian Industry, summed up the mood in a front-page comment, saying that, rather than deal with Italy's many problems, Mr Berlusconi has concentrated on his own judicial problems. It wrote: "In this way he places himself (bad) and Italy (worse) beyond the confines of the rule of law."