ROME, Sept. 28 (UPI) -- Members of an Italian political party headed by Silvio Berlusconi resigned Saturday in an objection to a planned tax increase, officials said.
Prime Minister Enrico Letta, who had threatened Friday to resign if Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PdL) party did not support his cabinet, was forced to return from New York to try to keep his coalition government together, the BBC reported.
Letta had said he would call for a confidence vote next week after the government failed to approve key budget measures.
Members of PdL, his coalition partner, threatened to resign Thursday if Berlusconi is forced out of his seat in parliament. Italy's supreme court recently upheld Berlusconi's fraud conviction, and Italian law requires he be removed from his seat.
Without PdL's support, Letta's government will collapse and he will be forced to call snap elections.
"I have no intention of limping along or being the subject of continuous threats," Letta said Friday in mentioning his possible resignation. "Either we go forward, and the interests of the country and citizens are put first, or this experience ends here."
The PdL claims Berlusconi is the victim of persecution and argues the law that could force him out of the parliament is unconstitutional, ANSA reported.
Business and union leaders fear failure of the government could create a crisis just as Italy is showing signs of an economic recovery. The International Monetary Fund said Friday tensions within the government "represent a risk to the economic outlook."
Giorgio Squinzi, the head of Confindustria, a confederation of industrial employers, described the situation as "crazy."
