News Analysis: Vote on Berlusconi's ejection from Senate sets 'new course' in Italian politics

Rome (Xinhua) - Italian center-right leader Silvio Berlusconi made the front pages once again on Saturday, a day after a special Senate's panel voted to strip him off his seat in Parliament.

"First yes to Berlusconi's ejection," "Berlusconi, end of the road" - with such headlines the main newspapers and analysts commented the news, observing how Italy's politics seems to have taken a new course.

"Silvio Berlusconi has lost the full control of his party and now he cannot push things too far, because he knows the rope would get broken," Fabio Martini, political analyst with 'La Stampa' newspaper, told Xinhua.

"He has been in command for nineteen years and all his MPs agreed with him on everything. Now this attitude has changed," he added.

Berlusconi has denounced the panel's vote as a blow to democracy, but even the most hard-liners among his followers could not repeat the usual refrain that 'if Berlusconi falls, the government will fall apart with him', Martini said.

This may be seen as the ending of his influence and role, and a significant change in the nature of Italian political system, he added.

The panel's vote on Friday came after Berlusconi's first definitive conviction for tax fraud, which the Italian Supreme Court upheld on August 1.

Berlusconi was given four years in prison, which is reduced to one under a 2006 pardon act. In force of a 2012 anti-corruption law, the Supreme Court sentence made him formally ineligible for Parliament.

His supporters have opposed his ejection from Senate arguing that the law was not in force at the time of the crime and could not therefore be applied retroactively. This line proved to be unsuccessful within the Senate's panel.

Such a case would have once created havoc within the Italian institutions, given the primary role Berlusconi has played for the last two decades as leader of the centre-right People of Freedom Party (PDL).

Yet It has not happened this time. Berlusconi found himself weaker, after having failed to topple down the government last week. A move opposed by many of his own followers in Parliament.

"After this week's events the Italian political horizon is certainly more steady," Martini told Xinhua. "It could be a first step toward that 'stability' many international observers recommend to us as a priority".

"Events in Italy are never easily predictable as in other big countries, but a new political collapse seems now very unlikely," the analyst said.

Berlusconi, three-time prime minister and billionaire media tycoon, is now 77. He has fiercely fought to stop or delay the proceedings against him.

Last week he drove his 5 ministers to resign and tried to overturn the cabinet, in a call that many observers judged as a last attempt to link the government's destiny to his own fate.

He had to back down, however, because of an open rebellion within his own senators - led by the number two of the PDL and deputy prime minister Angelino Alfano - which forced him to a sudden and public about-face. He ended up giving his support and confidence vote to the Prime Minister Enrico Letta.

The special committee's vote has now to be confirm by the full Assembly of the Upper House, which is expected to gather on the issue before the end of October.

The discussion within the Senate might be tougher, since PDL members are around one third of senators, but it is nonetheless very likely that Berlusconi would lose his seat in Parliament.

Berlusconi has proclaimed his innocence in all the legal cases set against him. He has appealed against two other first-grade convictions, one for having paid for sex with an underage prostitute and another for breaching confidentiality. He has survived some other corruption cases already expired.

In light of the legal cases still pending, loosing his immunity as senator may put him in a more sensitive position.