(Bloomberg) -- Former prime ministers Silvio Berlusconi and Matteo Renzi insisted they'll force a repeat election rather than form a so-called grand coalition if no political force wins a parliamentary majority when Italy goes to the polls on March 4.
Renzi, who leads the ruling center-left Democratic Party, is trying to persuade mainstream voters to return to his party by playing up the risks of supporting 81-year-old Berlusconi. The media billionaire has leapfrogged Renzi's group by sealing an alliance with right-wing groups such as the Northern League, moving closer to a possible majority.
“The PD will never govern with extremists,” Renzi, 43, told RAI television Tuesday. “I see things exactly like Berlusconi, if the numbers aren't there we go and vote again.”
Berlusconi, who is banned from holding public office after a tax-fraud conviction, ruled out a post-election pact with Renzi in an interview with the same channel on Monday.
Although their advisers privately acknowledge they could seek to govern together, the leaders of the two establishment parties are trying to keep their voters away from the populist Five Star Movement, which has capitalized on the widespread frustration with the status quo in Italy. Berlusconi is pushing for the late surge that could give him an unlikely majority, while Renzi is simply trying to staunch the bleeding. He's lost almost half his votes since the European elections of 2014.
Berlusconi's Snub
“There will be no possibility of forming a coalition with this PD,” Berlusconi said.
The center-right coalition is set to become the biggest bloc in the next parliament, with about 37 percent of the vote, opinion polls show. Berlusconi's advisers say that if he can get past 40 percent, he may secure a working majority. Five Star is the leading single party with 28 percent while the PD is a further five percentage points back.
All the same, Berlusconi is resisting efforts from his center-right allies to bind him into their coalition. Giorgia Meloni, leader of Brothers of Italy, has called a demonstration in Rome for Feb. 18 to show voters that center-right leaders will not break their pact after the vote. Meloni will make her party's candidates sign a pledge not to betray the coalition.
Berlusconi has refused to join the demonstration, saying that Germany's grand coalition was not “a dishonest fix” but “a coalition created in the open which is different from a secret accord.”
Immigration Concerns
Some executives and investors are betting that the two ex-premiers will still do a deal in the end, despite their public statements. A grand coalition is “the most likely” scenario, BNP Paribas SA's Chief Executive Officer Jean-Laurent Bonnafe told reporters in Paris Tuesday. He said that result would ensure Italy carries out reforms.
Indeed, Renzi himself made an overture to Berlusconi in Tuesday's interview, suggesting they should work together to change migration laws.
Both Renzi and his successor as premier, Paolo Gentiloni, have campaigned to change the Dublin agreement which decrees that would-be refugees must make their demand in the first European Union country they reach. On the front-line of migrant arrivals from across the Mediterranean, Italy sees this as placing an unfair burden on it.
“Immigration is a complicated issue, which wasn't caused by governments on the left,” Renzi said. “It exploded after the Dublin accord, signed by Berlusconi. Let's change it together without controversy.”
--With assistance from Fabio Benedetti-Valentini
To contact the reporter on this story: John Follain in Rome at jfollain2@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alan Crawford at acrawford6@bloomberg.net, Ben Sills, Kevin Costelloe
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