Silvio Berlusconi Survives No Confidence Vote (Video)

Silvio Berlusconi will continue to face tough times as he surprisingly survives two motions of no confidence.

Youths face policemen during a protest to demand a change of government as Parliament met to hold a no confidence vote that left Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in office on Dec. 14 in Via del Corso in Rome. Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images

[ Residents Clash With Riot Police on the Streets of Rome - NTD ]

Plagued by heavy opposition and personal scandals, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will continue to face tough times, as he surprisingly survived two motions of no confidence with only a three-vote difference, to the great discontent of 100,000 protesters in Rome.

On Tuesday, both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate had to vote on Berlusconi’s future and of the country. With two abstentions, 314 members of the Chamber of Deputies voted on Tuesday in favor of Berlusconi and 311 wanted the prime minister to resign. The Senate voted as well in favor of Berlusconi, with 11 abstentions, 162 against the motion and 135 in favor of it. If the scales in either one of the votes were to have tipped to the other side, Berlusconi would have had to resign, and the country would face new elections.

Berlusconi has been hounded by a number of scandals concerning corruption, involvement with a minor, and accounting fraud during the acquisition of television rights by his Mediaset television empire during his current term as prime minister, The Epoch Times reported previously. This led to a break within the ruling People of Liberty Party (PDL).

Gianfranco Fini, a former ally to Berlusconi, started a new party together with 33 members of Parliament over issues of ethics within the party. This creation of the Future and Freedom Party (FLI) at the end of July caused Berlusconi’s coalition to lose the majority of votes in the Chamber of Deputies.

Since Fini’s formation of FLI, the support of the 34 votes have proven to be essential to Berlusconi’s government. It has shown in recent weeks that “whenever FLI voted with the opposition, the government was under broad, of 15–20 votes,” Dario Franceschini of the Democratic Party said on his website on Monday.

This loss of majority spurred Franceschini to initiate the motion of no confidence in the Chamber of Deputies on Nov. 12. “The government no longer has the support of the original majority,” motion 1-00492 states. The reason for this loss of support, according to the motion, was due to ineffectiveness, “since the tenure of the executive does not address and resolve some of the serious problems of the country.”