Berlusconi’s fate may rest on lawmaker pregnancies

Perhaps it’s only fitting during this holiday season that a child about to be born could be the agent of Silvio Berlusconi’s political salvation.

Italy’s embattled prime minister faces a motion of no confidence in Parliament on Tuesday, and the count is so tight that if any one of three pregnant lawmakers who are expected to vote against him goes into labor beforehand, Berlusconi may survive by the skin of his teeth.

Battered by sex scandals and the desertion of onetime allies, the 74-year-old media tycoon tried to rally support Monday, telling lawmakers it would be foolish to bring down his government at a time when the Italian economy is trying to tiptoe its way through the crisis engulfing the euro.

Italy is dealing with one of the highest levels of public debt of any European country, and economic growth has been sluggish, but the government’s austerity plan has won at least initial praise from international investors.

“The last thing Italy needs is a political crisis,” Berlusconi warned in a speech before the Senate. A thumbs-up vote for his government, he said, would be a vote for “stability, efficiency, cooperation, decision-making capacity … a choice dictated by realism and political wisdom.”

To a large extent, however, he was preaching to the choir: His ruling coalition enjoys a comfortable majority in the upper chamber, which is expected to reaffirm its support for him.

It’s the vote in the 630-seat lower chamber that counts, and there the tally is too close to call. In July, Berlusconi’s closest ally, Gianfranco Fini, broke away from the prime minister’s center-right People of Freedom party, depriving him of a majority in the Chamber of Deputies and precipitating Tuesday’s censure motion.

Italian media and political analysts have been speculating feverishly over potential outcomes, many of which envision victory or defeat by a single vote.

The result could hinge on one of the three lawmakers whose pregnancies are undergoing a public scrutiny they scarcely would have thought possible. It will certainly depend on furious negotiations going on behind the scenes.

Berlusconi signaled Monday that he would be willing to reshuffle his Cabinet and bring in some of his political foes if he wins Tuesday’s vote. If he loses, Italy’s byzantine electoral rules would allow him to try to form another government, but experts say that new elections would be the probable result.

Either way, the power and prestige of the man who has led Italy for most of the last decade have been severely weakened.

Yet the opposition is also in relative disarray, its platform more about defeating Berlusconi than offering a viable alternative. That has put Italians in virtually a no-win situation, some observers say.

“The great parliamentary judgment that awaits us in the coming hours appears to be more than anything a clash between two weak powers. However it ends, there are grounds for skepticism as to the immediate future of the country,” an editorial in the business daily Il Sole 24 Ore said Sunday.

Although Berlusconi, now in his third term as premier, has been a controversial leader from the start, his troubles mounted rapidly this year with accusations that he has used his position to quash corruption probes into his business dealings and that he routinely hosted parties attended by prostitutes.

In October, it emerged that his office had intervened in the case of a teenage belly dancer with the stage name Ruby Heartbreak, who was arrested in Milan on suspicion of stealing thousands of dollars. Berlusconi’s office reportedly called police and asked that she be released, claiming — falsely — that she was a relative of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and that her detention could spark a diplomatic incident.

The girl was let go. She later told Italian media that she had attended parties at Berlusconi’s home and received a lavish gift from him. Berlusconi defended his involvement in her arrest, saying merely that he was a compassionate man who saw someone in need.

But religious authorities in the heavily Roman Catholic country have increasingly criticized Berlusconi’s conduct. Lawmakers too began distancing themselves from him, including Fini, who set up a rival party after he and more than 30 of his followers in Parliament defected.

henry.chu@latimes.com