ITALY: Dini’s Promises Fail to Satisfy Berlusconi

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Jorge Pina

ROME, Jan 19 1995 (IPS) - Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Thursday that he will vote for Lamberto Dini’s new cabinet if the prime minister agrees to end his term in June and the president calls parliamentary elections that same month.

Berlusconi said he was dissatisfied by an announcement Dini made on Wednesday that his government would last only the “few months” necessary to carry out the projected tasks, although he failed to specify a set deadline.

Following a session of the council of ministers, Dini said his administration will be one of emergency with a clearly defined programme, but that a deadline could not be set because “the constitution does not provide” for such a procedure.

Dini said he proposes to carry out an austerity plan and dictate new norms to regulate access by political forces to the media, one of the fundamental demands of the parties opposed to Berlusconi, a media mogul.

The centre-right parties that support the former prime minister insist that the promises of Dini – treasury minister under Berlusconi – are insufficient to gain their support.

On Tuesday, the new prime minister will present his proposed cabinet to the chamber of deputies for a vote of confidence.

In case he fails to win a vote of confidence, Dini will be forced to resign and Scalfaro will either name a new prime minister or call parliamentary elections.

“Nothing has changed since yesterday,” Berlusconi told the press after a meeting between lawmakers of the Forza Italia and National Alliance, two of the three principal forces that back the former prime minister.

National Alliance leader Gianfranco Fini said that during Dini’s speech to the chamber of deputies on Tuesday the prime minister should announce that elections will be called for June, which should be publicly confirmed by Scalfaro.

Fini specified that Berlusconi’s coalition, the ‘Polo de la Libertad’, will only support Dini – whose name they had proposed to Scalfaro – if he does so.

But if Berlusconi’s demands are met, Dini will lose the support of the forces that have supported him up to now, including the Democratic Leftist Party’s former communists, the former christian democrats of the Popular Party and the Northern League.

The two major coalitions are on a virtually equal footing in the chamber of deputies: Berlusconi’s supporters have 313 votes and the opposition 317. An absolute majority would be 316 as there are a total of 630 deputies.

However, Berlusconi’s opponents cannot guarantee Dini a vote of confidence because between 10 and 20 Northern League deputies may abandon the coalition and vote against the prime minister’s porposed cabinet.

Berlusconi wants elections to be called in June as he entertains hopes of garnering an absolute majority that would put him back in government, in which he lasted only seven months after winning Italy’s March 1994 legislative elections.