REUTERS ROME ITALIAN Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi won a crucial vote of confidence on Friday, giving his struggling centreright government a new, but probably short, lease of life.

Berlusconi, who said before the vote that the country would be thrown into economic and social catastrophe if his government collapsed now, won the vote 316 for and 301 against.

The result was in doubt until the last minute and even some centre-right members expressed uncertainty and showed nervousness before the vote on whether the government would pull through.

The situation was so tense that some in the centre-right went into last-minute horsetrading meetings with Berlusconi, who is trying to contain a rebellion in his coalition.

There was even doubt until the last minute if the quorum making the vote valid existed since most of the opposition boycotted the first round of the vote.

One coalition parliamentarian, Francesco Nucara, told the chamber he was voting to save the government for the good of the country but openly expressed dissent with the way Berlusconi was running the centre-right and his choice of ministers.

“You have put some people in your government who would not be worthy to be doorkeepers in some of your companies,” Nucara said in his address before the vote.

The prime minister’s administration has been plagued by scandals, economic stagnation and intense pressure from financial markets.

Berlusconi was forced to call the vote after his divided and undisciplined coalition suffered a major embarrassment when it failed to pass a routine budget provision on Tuesday.

The prime minister was holding a cabinet meeting immediately after the vote to re-present the budget measure defeated on Tuesday, a result that Berlusconi wrote off as just an “accident” because some parliamentarians arrived late.

While the vote gave Berlusconi a reprieve, analysts say it will be just a matter of months only before a new crisis hits, and Italy is likely to hold elections next spring, a year early.

“The anxiety and fatigue of the ruling majority does not point to any revival. If anything, it increases the sense of a government limping towards the terminus, hoping to make it to the end of the year without being forced to stop earlier,” said Massimo Franco in newspaper Corriere della Sera.

Berlusconi told parliament on Thursday the fall of his government would be “a victory for those who want to see (Italy) fall into decline, catastrophe and the kind of speculation we have seen for months in Europe and Italy”.

Several newspaper editorials on Friday highlighted the lack of new ideas in Berlusconi’s speech to parliament a day before the vote was taken, describing him as paralysed by a fear of aggravating tensions in his coalition. “Not one new thought was expressed. Absolutely nothing.

A complete vacuum,” said Luca Ricolfi in La Stampa daily. “Berlusconi has by now become a factor that is immobilising and freezing Italian politics.” A number of centre-right deputies were absent from Tuesday’s vote, infuriating Berlusconi and feeding suspicions that some stayed away to raise their bargaining power in the coalition.