Italy's Letta survives confidence vote

Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta won a confidence vote on Wednesday after Silvio Berlusconi backtracked on a pledge to bring down the five-month old government as his party showed signs of deserting him.

Letta was supported by 235 senators while 70 opposed him during a vote today in Rome. Just hours before, former Premier Berlusconi announced that he would support the government, reversing an earlier pledge to oppose him in the vote. Berlusconi said the decision was taken for the good of the country after "internal strife" within his party. "Italy needs a government that can undertake institutional and structural reforms," he said during a speech in Parliament.
 
Letta called a confidence vote after Berlusconi pulled his ministers from the government Sept. 28, setting off a week of political turmoil. Cracks in Berlusconi's PDL party began to show when prominent figures including Deputy Premier Angelino Alfano said they'd vote for the government. "Berlusconi might have been convinced by the extreme risks of internal division within his party," Annalisa Piazza, an analyst at Newedge Group in London, said.