Berlusconi calls confidence vote on his government

"After losing a routine parliamentary vote on the budget, Silvio Berlusconi, the very annoyed prime minister of Italy called for a vote of confidence. The vote is expected on Friday.

I believe Berlusconi may lose a close vote. If not, he will be discarded by March".

Mish Shedlock

From Euronews

Berlusconi stakes his fate on confidence vote in parliament

The Guardian reports Berlusconi stakes his fate on confidence vote in parliament

Silvio Berlusconi is to stake the fate of his government and his own political future on a confidence vote in parliament on Friday.

Standing before a half-empty chamber boycotted by the opposition, he appealed on Thursday for support from the chamber of deputies, the lower house of the Italian parliament, saying: "There are no alternatives." Berlusconi decided to seek a vote of confidence after losing a crucial division on the public accounts earlier this week.

The result of the confidence vote is due at around 11.30am GMT on Friday. To survive, the government needs only to secure more votes than the opposition. If it loses, it is constitutionally bound to resign.

All but six deputies were missing from the opposition benches when the prime minister got up to speak, the main opposition parties having decided to stay away from the debate in protest at Berlusconi's refusal to step down.

Under mounting pressure from the courts, where he is a defendant in three trials, the prime minister leads an increasingly fractious party.

Unusually for a conservative government, Berlusconi's is under open attack from the leading bosses' federation, Confindustria. Alarm over the state of the economy also helps to explain the emergence in recent weeks of critical factions in the PdL, notably one centred on a former minister, Claudio Scajola, who resigned last year in an alleged corruption scandal.

Scajola said he and his followers would support the government on Friday and the PdL's parliamentary business managers appeared confident they could muster enough votes in the 630-member chamber. There has been widespread media speculation that rebels in the Northern League and Berlusconi's own party would prefer to wait until January before delivering a fatal blow to the government.

That could clear the way for an election in the spring – before taxpayers start to feel the full effects of the tax rises and spending cuts imposed in recent months. But with Berlusconi's approval rating below 25% in the polls, the right has a vast amount of ground to make up