ROME — Silvio Berlusconi, who spent nearly two decades atop the world of Italian politics, resigned as prime minister Saturday night after lawmakers rushed through a budget bill seen as the first step toward winning back investor confidence and preventing the collapse of the world’s eighth-largest economy.
The resignation ends a political era punctuated by headlines of Berlusconi’s “bunga bunga” sex parties and colorful gaffes. Ultimately forced out of office by a debt crisis instead of personal scandal, the flamboyant billionaire’s departure appeared to pave the way for a staid, serious economist, Mario Monti, to attempt to form an interim government and try to pull Italy back from the brink.
As a last act of the Berlusconi government — one he had demanded before resigning — a confrontational lower house gave final approval Saturday to a budget bill that was passed by the Senate on Friday and that contains measures insisted on by the European Union.
But the bill is seen as only a precursor to a far more controversial and far-reaching economic package that observers hope Monti can push through in the coming weeks. The broader package’s passage will be vital, economists say, to kick-starting Italy’s moribund economy and quelling investor doubts about Italy’s ability to service its $2.6 trillion debt.
After the vote, Berlusconi rode to Rome’s grand Quirinal Palace, a former home of popes, to tender his resignation to Italy’s ceremonial head of state, President Giorgio Napolitano.
Berlusconi now tops a list of European leaders, including those in Greece, Ireland and Portugal, who have unceremoniously lost their jobs in the turmoil of the region’s 2-year-old debt crisis.
“I think he (Monti) is going to bring trust back to Italian people who are losing it, are a bit fed up with what’s going on and have lost the trust and the respect” they had for Berlusconi, said Sophie Duffort of France, who was in the piazza Saturday night.
On Saturday, Italy’s notoriously divided political classes were in fierce negotiations over fresh leadership, with some still calling for snap elections that could leave Italy stuck in a power vacuum for months. But Monti, the 68-year-old professor and former European commissioner, still appeared to be the top candidate to head an emergency government that could last for as long as a year.
