Berlusconi coalition faces new row over immigrant voting

ROME, Oct 8 (AFP) - A xenophobic minister in Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's fractious coalition threatened Wednesday to bring down the government if a proposal to give voting rights to immigrants was adopted.

"Everything will go -- the government will fall and we'll be headed for early elections," warned Northern League party leader Umberto Bossi, who is minister for institutional reform.

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He was reacting to a suggestion Tuesday by Deputy Prime Minister Gianfranco Fini, who heads the conservative coalition's second party, the National Alliance (AN).

Fini, who has made no secret of his desire to see the Northern League and its firebrand xenophobic leader out of government, proposed that immigrants with valid residency papers should be given the right to vote in local Italian elections.

"Fini can say what he likes, but he should know that if he carries on in that direction, he'll be headed straight into a brick wall," Bossi said in comments quoted by La Stampa Wednesday.

"In our electoral pact, there was a law on immigration, there would be no vote for immigrants," he warned.

Bossi and Fini jointly sponsored a new, stricter immigration law last July. It made entry into the country for immigrants conditional on having a pre-arranged work contract, and allowing for the immediate deportation of offenders.

But Fini upped the ante Tuesday, saying "the time is ripe to discuss the right to vote for immigrants who are living, working and paying their taxes in Italy and have been granted legal residence permits."

Immigration remains a touchy topic in Italy, whose long, exposed coastlines are regularly flooded with boatloads of clandestine arrivals and prompted Rome to make it a priorty issue when it took over as EU president last July.

Fini's proposals not only irritated the formerly separatist Northern League but triggered consternation in Berlusconi's Forza Italia party and in sections of Fini's own right-wing National Alliance.

The only coalition partner to give whole-hearted support was the small Christian Democrat UDC party.

La Repubblica daily, close to the leftist opposition, picked up quickly on what it saw as a fresh jab to set off a new coalition row.

"It's a fist in the stomach for the AN, a finger in the eye of Umberto Bossi, and a blow to Silvio Berlusconi's heart," the paper said.

Berlusconi has tried to downplay the bickering, once saying it was "just the kids letting off steam".

But Italian media has said he is tired of having to defuse fights -- even blaming his recent extra kilos on the stress -- with enough problems of his own to worry about.

The country has been dogged by rising inflation, which the Istat statistics bureau Wednesday said showed a 2.8 percent increase since September last year -- higher than the 2.1 percent overall eurozone increase.

And Berlusconi, Italy's richest man, is set to face more legal embarrassment after the constitutional court last week said it would examine in December whether a law granting the prime minister immunity from bribery charges concerning deals from the 1980s was constitutional.

And labor unions are threatening a nationwide strike on October 24 to protest the government's controversial proposed overhaul of the pension system.

Bossi managed to bring down the first Berlusconi government in 1994 by quitting seven months into its term.

His League now is not as strong as it once was and the three other coalition partners would still have a majority in the lower house of parliament.

But Berlusconi's coalition emerged battered from disastrous local elections in June, and the prime minister -- already criticized for not reining in the outspoken Bossi -- will be hard pressed to ensure unity with parties jockeying for position ahead of European elections next May.

Italy's left-wing has watched the infighting eagerly, but its own divisions and lack of a clear leader work counter to its hopes of taking advantage of the coalition's troubles.

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