Italy in suspense as it waits for verdict on Berlusconi appeal

Rarely has Italy's elite been held in such suspense. On Tuesday, the Supreme Court is set to consider former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's final appeal against a conviction for tax fraud which, if upheld, could end his 20-year political career and bring down the coalition government.

Despite the mounting worries, there is speculation that the Rome court could postpone its verdict for a day or so or until September, or even send the long-running trial back to a lower court of appeal, media reports speculated on Sunday. "Nobody has a clue what will happen, maybe not even the judges," Deborah Bergamini, member of parliament for Mr Berlusconi's centre-right People of Liberty and a long-time loyalist, told the Financial Times.

Libero, a rightwing daily, fanned the flames by quoting the 76-year-old billionaire senator as saying that, if convicted, he would choose to do time in prison, eschewing his rights as a pensioner to do social services "like a criminal who has to be re-educated" or serve his sentence under house arrest. Mr Berlusconi's office denied any such interview had taken place.

Speculation about what the Supreme Court will do has been rife since May, when a Milan court threw out Mr Berlusconi's first-stage appeal against a four-year jail sentence and a five-year ban on holding public office. It found him guilty of tax fraud along with other executives accused of inflating prices in the acquisition of US film and television rights by his Mediaset company more than a decade ago. Mediaset and Mr Berlusconi deny the charges.

The possibility that Italy's longest-serving postwar prime minister and winner of three elections could this week be thrown out of politics by the courts rather than the voting public has enraged his supporters. For them the latest trial is proof of a politically motivated witch-hunt by a biased judiciary that has failed to bring about a final conviction in more than 30 court cases. Italy's democracy, they say, is at stake.

So is the survival of prime minister Enrico Letta's coalition between his centre-left Democrats and Mr Berlusconi's party, the unprecedented and fragile outcome of elections in February that produced no clear winner.

Mr Berlusconi - who is also appealing against convictions for abuse of office and paying for sex with a teenage prostitute - has said his court battles will not influence his or his party's support for Mr Letta's government. But few believe this crisis will be resolved so smoothly.

"I personally would not accept that Berlusconi be forced out of politics on a decision made by judges," commented Ms Bergamini. Rightwing hawks have suggested a mass resignation of their MPs.

One theory is that a final conviction for Mr Berlusconi would lead to the People of Liberty pulling its ministers out of the government, including Angelino Alfano, deputy prime minister and Mr Berlusconi's number two. The party would support the government on a case-by-case basis and then bring the crisis to a head in the autumn budget for 2014, precipitating elections early next year.

Giorgio Napolitano, the 88-year-old president who reluctantly agreed in April to serve a second term, has warned that he would not be so easily pushed into dissolving parliament, calling the repeated recourse to early elections as "one of the most dangerous of Italian pathologies".

On the other hand, Mr Napolitano might have little choice, except for his "nuclear" option. That would be to resign - at the risk of propelling Italy deeper into political instability - giving the Democrats and the anti-establishment Five Star Movement the chance to do a deal in parliament and elect a head of state for the next seven years even more antithetical to the centre-right than Mr Napolitano.

As Rome empties under a heatwave for its sacrosanct August break, there is a widespread sense that, convicted or not, Mr Berlusconi is planning his own staged withdrawal from the political front line. Last week he announced on Facebook that his party would relaunch itself in September, returning to its original name of Forza Italia to "focus on the young and business leaders".

This fuelled speculation that Mr Berlusconi is grooming Marina, the oldest of his five children, to take the helm. Ms Berlusconi already chairs Fininvest, the family's media holding company, and the Mondadori publishing group. A 65 per cent increase this year in the share price of their quoted Mediaset company reflects in part a belief that dynastic succession is in the works.

At 42, Marina is seen by her father as an intelligent and popular foil to Matteo Renzi, the 38-year-old reformist mayor of Florence who is a contender for the leadership of the faction-ridden Democratic party.

Forbes magazine ranked Marina the 33rd most powerful woman in the world in 2007, although some say she is reluctant to sacrifice business success for a risky political venture. The court's conviction of her father might change her mind. As one senator and Berlusconi loyalist commented: "She is studying."

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