Premier and Democratic Party
(PD) leader Matteo Renzi on Friday said he "had the numbers" to
pass flagship institutional reforms without the support of the
centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party of ex-premier Silvio
Berlusconi, who pulled his backing after the PD chief imposed
Sergio Mattarella as Italian president, deepening a rift in FI.
"We have the numbers even without (FI), but I hope that
reason prevails (in Berlusconi's party)," he said.
"If Forza Italia wants to eat its words" on an
institutional reform deal called the Nazareno Pact, "buon
appetito", quipped the premier.
The PD will still respect Berlusconi and FI even if they
confirm they are pulling out of the Nazareno Pact, Renzi went
on.
"We don't aim to speak ill of our opponents, but to work
well for Italy," he said.
Renzi got a fillip in his search for votes Friday as eight
Senators and MPs with the centrist Civic Choice (SC) said they
would sit with the PD caucus and some would even join the
premier's party.
The eight said in a statement: "We welcome the invitation
of Renzi to follow a common path".
The migrants from Civic Choice include Gianluca Susta,
party leader in the Senate, Stefania Giannini, who is education
minister, Alessandro Maran, Linda Lanzillotta, well-known
labour-law reform expert Pietro Ichino, Ilaria Borletti Buitoni,
Irene Tinagli, and Carlo Calenda.
"The project of (former premier Mario) Monti is
exhausted," said Giannini.
Monti set Civic Choice up in a surprise bid for office in
the 2013 general election after serving for 14 months as a
technocrat premier who imposed austerity to bring Italy back
from the brink of a Greek-style crisis.
The split between Renzi and Berlusconi over the
imposition of Mattarella - a former critic of the ex-premier and
media magnate's conflicts of interest - has raised questions
about the future of the so-called Nazareno Pact.
The leaders of the two parties had reached that deal one
year ago on pushing through Parliament much-needed election
reforms and the abolition of the Senate as a lawmaking body.
Renzi has said that he believes that he has enough
support to pass his reforms to Italy's widely condemned election
laws as well as the institutional reforms - which require a
two-thirds majority if they are to avoid going to a referendum -
with or without the FI.
But the addition of the Civic Choice MPs and Senators
will give Renzi some extra cushioning during the votes.
Meanwhile the trouble in FI sparked by Mattarella, who
once resigned as minister rather than back a law consolidating
Berlusconi's TV empire, deepened Friday with leading dissident
Raffaele Fitto announcing he would call his own "convention" on
the future of the party.
While arguing that he is a "rebuilder", not a "breaker" of
FI, he said that the gathering on February 21 "will be
the occasion when we will begin to show our proposals for Italy
as well as for Forza Italia, and for the centre right".
Earlier in the week, Fitto denounced Berlusconi's
leadership and said the party was heading in the wrong
direction.
Like a sizeable minority in the party over which
Berlusconi had long reigned supreme, Fitto claimed Berlusconi
had been tricked by Renzi in the election of Constitutional
Court judge Mattarella as Italy's 12th president, replacing
Giorgio Napolitano who quit last month.
Berlusconi himself appeared to be shocked that an agreed
candidate for president was not part of the Nazareno Pact, even
though Renzi had publicly stated on several occasions that it
only covered electoral and Constitutional reforms.
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