Setback for Berlusconi as members of own party back coalition government

Mr Letta easily won the confidence vote in the Italian Senate, allowing him to keep his five-month old coalition alive.

The actual voting was anticlimactic after former premier Berlusconi acknowledged defeat and said he would support Mr Letta 
after defections in his party robbed him of the backing he needed to bring down the government.

In brief remarks before a confidence vote, Berlusconi said: “Italy needs a government that can produce structural and institutional reforms that the country needs to modernise. We have decided, not without internal strife, to vote in confidence.”

It was a huge setback for Berlusconi. He had demanded his five cabinet ministers quit the government and bring it down. He is incensed at a vote planned for Friday that could strip him of his Senate seat following his tax fraud conviction and four-year prison sentence.

Mr Letta had hailed his five-month-old government’s successes and outlined his agenda to revive Italy’s moribund economy and turn around its record unemployment. He warned MPs in the Senate that Italy “runs a risk, a fatal risk” depending on the choices they make.

“Give us your confidence to realise these objectives. Give us your confidence for all that has been accomplished,” he said to applause. “A confidence vote that isn’t against anyone, but a confidence vote for Italy and Italians.”

Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party has been badly divided ever since Italy’s high court upheld his tax fraud conviction and sentence in August. But it has been thrown into chaos after several MPs and his closest ally and political heir Angelino Alfano openly defied him and said they would support Letta. Mr Alfano has served as Mr Letta’s deputy in the hybrid government and clearly thinks it has accomplished a good deal of the Berlusconi party agenda.