Protesters in Rome torch cars after Italian Prime Minister narrowly survived two confidence votes Tuesday. (Giampiero Sposito/Reuters)
Violent protests have erupted in Rome after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi won back-to-back confidence votes in parliament, narrowly surviving one of his toughest political challenges yet.
Riot police used tear gas to try to stop angry demonstrators from torching cars, smashing windows and clashing with police.
Inside parliament's lower house, tensions boiled over as lawmakers pushed and shoved each other, forcing a brief suspension in the voting.
Berlusconi won Tuesday's votes in the Italian Senate and Chamber of Deputies.
In the Senate, he won by a vote of 162-135. In the second and most dramatic of Tuesday's votes, Berlusconi survived a confidence motion in the lower house by three votes.
If he had lost, Berlusconi would have been forced to resign, halfway through the five-year term of parliament.
The parliamentary showdown followed a spate of sex scandals and a dramatic fallout with his one-time closest ally, Gianfranco Fini. The breakup could have deprived Berlusconi of a majority in the lower house, where the outcome was expected to hang on a few undecided lawmakers.
Fini, the co-founder of Berlusconi's centre-right People of Freedom party who abandoned the coalition last summer, predicted the premier would lose.
Berlusconi had said he was confident he would win both votes.
© The Canadian Press, 2010
Berlusconi's time is over. He should resign and leave the torch to someone that can bring italians's confidence back.
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