Berlusconi Loses Majority After Ally Asks Him to Resign

Umberto Bossi, center, a key ally in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's center-right coalition, publicly asked Mr. Berlusconi to step aside on Tuesday.

ROME — Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy won a budget vote in Parliament on Tuesday but the tally showed that he no longer has the support of the majority, a huge humiliation that raised the pressure on him to resign in the face of an escalating debt crisis that has hobbled Greece, threatens Italy and could infect the rest of Europe.

The budget vote came hours after Umberto Bossi, a key ally in Mr. Berlusconi’s center-right coalition, publicly asked him to step aside for the sake of the country, the euro zone’s third-largest economy and a new epicenter of a crisis that has raised investor anxiety in markets around the world.

Mr. Bossi asked the prime minister to relinquish his post in favor of Angelino Alfano, the secretary of Mr. Berlusconi’s Peoples of Liberty Party.

Mr. Berlusconi’s coalition received 308 votes in favor of passing the bill, but 321 lawmakers did not vote — a clear sign that “Mr. Berlusconi no longer has a majority,” said Pier Luigi Bersani, the leader of the opposition Democratic Party. He also called on the prime minister to immediately hand in his resignation to President Giorgio Napolitano.

“Let the president find a solution, we will do our part,” Mr. Bersani said.

Expressing alarm about Italy’s rapidly rising borrowing costs, a reflection of investor fears over the country’s economic future, he said: “We all know that Italy runs the real risk of not being able to access the financial markets in the next few days.”

The vote came after yields on 10-year Italian government bonds — the price demanded by investors to loan Italy money — approached 7 percent, the highest levels since the adoption of the single euro currency 10 years ago and a far cry from the 0.3 percent that Germany pays.

Mr. Berlusconi had said earlier that he would decide his political future based on the outcome of the vote, a routine verification of the 2010 budget. The vote had taken on immense political importance for the prime minister after the defection in recent days of a number of lawmakers in his party.

Still, by late afternoon, Mr. Berlusconi had given no indication what course of action he was preparing to take.

The prime minister had reiterated repeatedly in recent days that the coalition must stick together to pass a series of austerity measures that will placate the financial markets that have targeted Italy’s financial vulnerabilities, just as they have done in Greece, the euro zone’s other crisis-ridden member. No less than the future of the euro and Europe is at risk, Mr. Berlusconi has said, playing on a national sense of responsibility to rein in his detractors.

But critics countered that Mr. Berlusconi was among the chief reasons for the financial attacks on Italy. The scandal-plagued prime minister, who is on trial for corruption, tax fraud and paying for sex with a minor, has worn away what had been left of his international credibility, they say. And after months of parliamentary deadlock, Mr. Berlusconi has shown that he does not have the political backing to push through the measures that are required of Italy to remedy its financial ills.

Italy has been under the watchful eye of its European counterparts and international organizations since the summer, when the government pushed through two sets of austerity measures that financial markets nonetheless deemed insufficient to bolster the country’s economy and make a dent in its huge public debt of 1.9 trillion euros. At 120 percent of gross domestic product, Italy’s debt level is second only to Greece’s in the euro zone.

Last month, Mr. Berlusconi pledged to the European Union that he would approve a new round of restructuring, including the privatization of state assets, liberalizations of the labor market and a modest pension change, but his promises did little to quell market anxieties.

Even the decision taken at the Group of 20 Summit last week to allow the International Monetary Fund to monitor Italy’s implementation of the pledged reforms did little to bolster investor confidence.

Opposition parties had said they would abstain from the vote on the budget, which meant that Mr. Berlusconi did not need to reach an absolute majority to pass the measure. But even so, the numbers were closely watched to see whether Mr. Berlusconi could muster a healthy majority that would ensure at least a measure of stability in the short run.

President Giorgio Napolitano, who is constitutionally required to manage a political crisis, has a number of options open to him.

Mr. Berlusconi and his coalition allies are pressing for new elections, though recent polls indicate that they would not win the numbers to return to power.

Some opposition leaders, numerically empowered by the poll predictions, are also tempted by a return to the polls 18 months ahead of the scheduled end of the legislature.

But neither the current majority or any of the opposition parties are likely to garner a solid majority on their own, and it is probable that a multiparty coalition with conflicting vested interests would not have the political cohesion necessary to pass unpopular measures.

Another option is to appoint a technocrat — Mario Monti, a former European commissioner, is commonly mentioned — as head of the government for a fixed period of time that would allow for reforms to be enacted.

Despite the crisis, it remains to be seen whether a government led by someone like Mr. Monti would actually come up with the unity to govern.

The country’s political crisis has been exacerbated by coalition partners in both the majority and the opposition that are openly hostile to Europe, remaining “at the margin of the European political network,” and making it more difficult to push through reforms demanded by Europe, said Sergio Fabbrini, director of the School of Government at Luiss University in Rome. In this situation, a changeover in government is unlikely to make much of a difference, he said.