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ROME : Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi backed down on Saturday on a planned new legislation seen by critics as aimed at getting him off a legal hook.
In a video message to his supporters, Berlusconi said the measure would no longer feature in the government's programme which is to be put to a vote of confidence in parliament later this month.
The judicial reform, said to be aimed at unclogging the Italian justice system, would quash any legal case that is not concluded six years after its launching, including a number which concern Berlusconi himself.
Berlusconi, 73, lost his once-comfortable parliamentary majority in July when lower house speaker Gianfranco Fini quit the People of Freedom party they co-founded, ending a 16-year alliance.
Fini's supporters set up breakaway parliamentary groups of 33 deputies and 10 senators and on Sunday he is to make a keynote speech expected to announce his future plans, possibly by creating a new party.
Fini and Berlusconi have been at odds since a public spat in April, largely over the planned legislation that would help Berlusconi avoid prosecution on corruption and tax fraud charges.
The rest of the programme to be put to a vote of confidence includes tax reforms, federalism, aid to the poorer south of Italy and new measures to curb crime and illegal immigration.
If the vote brings down the government, President Giorgio Napolitano will poll parliamentary group leaders on the possibility of forming a transitional government, failing which he will dissolve parliament and call elections.
Berlusconi, 73, handily won elections in 2008, becoming prime minister for the third time since 1994.
His main ally is the right-wing Northern League, which has pressed for early elections since the crisis within Berlusconi's party.
But Northern League leader Umberto Bossi said after talks with the prime minister last month that the government would go ahead with its legislative programme and there would be "no elections for the moment."
Before the meeting, Interior Minister Roberto Maroni of the Northern League said he was not hopeful of reaching an agreement with the rebels. - AFP/fa
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