Italy's PM, president vow to seek solutions to political crisis

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Italy's PM, president vow to seek solutions to political crisis

(Xinhua) 08:11, September 30, 2013

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ROME, Sept. 29 -- Italy's President Giorgio Napolitano and Prime Minister Enrico Letta said on Sunday they would seek solutions to face the current political crisis triggered by former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's center-right People of Freedom (PdL) party.

In the present "climate of uncertainty," Napolitano and Letta have agreed to "illustrate in parliament, which is the seat for all decisive clarifications, their evaluations on the event and on what to do," a statement from the presidential office said after they concluded a bilateral meeting late in the day.

"We are in a somewhat cryptic phase. I will try to see if there are any possibilities to continue the legislature," Napolitano was also quoted as saying by ANSA news agency earlier on Sunday.

The unnatural alliance between the PdL and Letta's center-left Democratic Party (PD), two traditional rivals forced together by a deadlocked election, was thrown into crisis on Saturday when Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said that all five ministers in Berlusconi's party, including himself, were resigning.

The three-time prime minister and media entrepreneur, who turned 77 on Sunday, has blamed the government for putting on ice the postponement of a hike in the value added tax (VAT), that Letta said "was agreed upon by PdL and PD."

Tensions have mounted in the fragile government since Italy's supreme court in August upheld a verdict convicting Berlusconi with tax fraud. His sentence was four years in prison commuted to one year of social work or house arrest, while a lower court will have to reconsider the length of a five-year ban on politics.

Based on a 2012 anti-corruption law, a special Senate committee meeting on Oct. 4 is scheduled to vote to strip him of his seat.

Berlusconi restated that he was the victim of left-wing magistrates and pledged to stay in power. "The only way now is to move decisively towards elections as early as possible. All polls tell us that we will be the winner," he said on Sunday.

"Berlusconi only has a twofold objective: dissolve parliament and go to early elections to prevent the committee from stripping him of his seat and avoid Senate voting the ban on politics that will be decreed in mid-October by a Milan court," PD Chamber chief Roberto Speranza said.

"He has decided to stab Italy in order to escape these two pronouncements," he highlighted.

If Letta, who has a majority in the lower house, manages to secure the support of a few dozen senators among the PdL rebels or opposition parties, he could form a new coalition.

Otherwise Napolitano, who along with major business organizations has called for need of political stability while Italy is still mired in recession, would have to either call new voting or try to oversee the formation of a new government.