(ANSA) - Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi has an exit strategy ready if he loses next year's general election.
"If I'm defeated I'll sail off to Tahiti," said the media magnate, who owns several luxury yachts. Berlusconi reiterated that he was "ready to sacrifice" himself for five more years if he wins.
He admitted that forging his fractious coalition into a single unit that could put up a more effective fight was proving harder than he had hoped. The premier showed renewed signs of irritation at having policy forced on him, or stymied, by small allies. He suggested Italy's electoral law should be changed so that parties with less than 10% of the vote would be barred from parliament.
Currently Berlusconi has two allies in that category, the Catholic UDC and the regionalist Northern League, often at loggerheads with each other and sometimes with the premier. The UDC has questioned Berlusconi's leadership repeatedly over the summer, suggesting a new leader may be
needed to beat the centre-left opposition next April.
The Northern League, meanwhile, has run counter to other parties in stiffly defending scandal-hit Bank of Italy Governor Antonio Fazio. Today the League said it was tired of waiting for its federalist agenda to be enacted. A League minister said an upcoming party pow-wow would
"decide how long Job's patience can still last."
Data on Italian public opinion has been very scant in the last year but pundits believe former premier Romano Prodi's centre left now has a slight edge over Berlusconi's centre-right coalition.
