Italy's Monti opens door to seeking new term

BITTER ELECTION

Both Berlusconi's centre-right People of Freedom (PDL) party and the centre-left Democratic Party (PD), which is leading in the opinion polls, have urged Monti not to stand in the election.

Berlusconi, who left office last year with fraud charges and a juvenile prostitution scandal hanging over him, has accused Monti's "Germano-centric" government of worsening recession with austerity measures, including a deeply unpopular housing tax he has promised to scrap.

In an exchange which may give a taste of bitter campaigning to come, Berlusconi said his nightmare would be a government with Monti at its head and Gianfranco Fini, a former ally turned bitter foe who supports the premier, "coming out of the sewers".

Fini's lieutenant Fabio Granata responded by saying Berlusconi's remark was "fitting for his court of thieves, mafiosi, corrupt politicians, slaves and prostitutes."

Monti was also scathing about Berlusconi, whom he replaced as Italy teetered on the brink of disaster in November 2011.

He said he had been "bewildered" by the 76-year-old media tycoon's frequent changes of position. And, in an interview with  La Repubblica daily, he expressed incredulity that Italians might re-elect Berlusconi "after seeing the damage he did to the Italian economy and the credibility of the country".

PD leader Pier Luigi Bersani, whose party has backed Monti in parliament and pledges to maintain the broad course he has set, was more cautious, saying he would look at Monti's reform proposals closely but that it would be up to voters to decide.

Monti said he hoped the next government would have a strong majority to pursue a programme that would extend the reforms his government had begun, in areas ranging from the labour market to justice and cutting the bloated cost of the political system.

He said the next government must not make easy election promises or backtrack on reforms: "We have to avoid illusory and extremely dangerous steps backwards."

During his 13 months in office, Monti hiked taxes severely and chopped backed spending while pushing through reforms of the pension system, labour market and parts of the service sector.

However, many analysts said his efforts were too timid to significantly improve the outlook of a chronically sluggish economy, and Monti himself said that Italy was "only at the beginning of the structural reforms" required.

Italy, the euro zone's third-largest economy, has been in recession since the middle of last year. Consumer spending is falling at its fastest rate since World War Two and unemployment has risen to a record high above 11 percent.