Watershed beckons for Berlusconi's party Split seems imminent ahead of Saturday meeting

(By Christopher Livesay) (ANSA) - Rome, November 15 - Three-time premier Silvio Berlusconi on Friday said that doves in his party unwilling to adopt a hard line against a drive to strip him of his Senate seat "are free to go," suggesting an imminent rupture in his center-right party. "Those who believe in us, stay and fight," he added. The statement was released amid the latest negotiation with Angelino Alfano, deputy premier and interior minister, and Fabrizio Cicchitto, a prominent member from Berlusconi's People of Freedom (PdL) party, both pro-government doves. The PdL is in danger of a split between doves and hardline hawks, who are in favor of breaking off the government alliance with the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) if Berlusconi is ejected from parliament following a binding conviction for tax fraud. The split may take place at Saturday's national assembly of the PdL, which has been called to make it possible for the party to be replaced with a new group taking its former name, Forza Italia. Berlusconi's criticism of a lack of party unity was apparent in his statement Friday: "Why should moderate Italians unite behind us when we were the first to divide ourselves? "Tomorrow at the podium I will repeat once more the reasons why it is critical to stay united and fight together, we moderates who will unite the moderates". Berlusconi and PdL hawks are furious that the PD, Premier Enrico Letta's party, has supported a drive for Berlusconi to be stripped of his Senate seat after the supreme court upheld a tax-fraud conviction against the 77-year-old media magnate, making it the first definitive sentence in two decades of legal entanglements.A vote on the ban is scheduled on the floor of the Senate November 27. The doves agree with Berlusconi's assertion that he is the victim of a campaign of persecution by left-wing judges who are trying to wipe him off the political scene. But Alfano and his supporters do not think the party should sink the government over Berlusconi's legal problems, as the country struggles to emerge from its longest recession in over two decades. At a meeting Wednesday Alfano told Berlusconi his legal problems and the fate the government should be kept separate, while stressing that the party moderates would continue to fight against him being turfed out of parliament, the sources said. Alfano, until recently touted as Berlusconi's heir apparent, has also said there was a risk of Forza Italia becoming extremist. The three-time premier has said several times it would be unthinkable for his party to cooperate with the PD if it commits "political homicide" by getting him stripped of his seat. Berlusconi has also warned the doves that they risk political oblivion if they break away from the rest of the party. Alfano, until recently touted as Berlusconi's heir apparent, has said there was a risk of Forza Italia becoming extremist.On Friday Berlusconi rebuffed the claim."I'm not going to change, I won't change Forza Italia," he said in a statement. "If it were to become something else, something small and petty, prey of an oligarchy, or if it risked becoming extremist, I, the founder, would be the one who no longer recognizes it". Recently stripped of his role as secretary in the PdL, Alfano led a PdL rebellion that forced Berlusconi to back down on a bid to scupper Letta's grand-coalition government last month.Letta has said that Berlusconi's failure to force a government crisis proved he has the numbers to retain control of the cabinet by leaning on the PdL rebels even if Forza Italia pulls its support.