Italy's Berlusconi claims subversives planning a palace coup

Rome, June 15 (ANI): Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has said that subversives are planning a palace coup of sorts to impose an un-elected leader on the country.Addressing a business lobby group, Berlusconi said: "There is a campaign of scandals against me. It is a subversive plan because its aim is to bring down a Prime Minister and to put in his place another not elected by Italians. If that is not subversion, tell me what is."

Berlusconi, however, did not identify the alleged plotters.

Opponents who say that the scandal surrounding his personal life is eroding his support within the country and in his governing right-wing coalition seized on his latest claim about a plot to oust him.

They claimed that Berlusconi's authority has been undermined by an inquiry into the use of state aircraft to fly showgirls and other guests to parties at his villa in Sardinia, and that the pressure in recent weeks has made him unpredictable.Among those flown in was Noemi Letizia, 18, an aspiring model with whom Berlusconi, 72, has formed a friendship that he has failed to explain in full.

Although he denies that anything "spicy" occurred with Ms Letizia, his wife has asked for a divorce on the basis that he "frequents minors".

Massimo D'Alema, the former centre-left Prime Minister, said: "Berlusconi is not a man who can accept his human and political decline, driven as he is by the myth of eternal youth. Myths are always dangerous."

Giampaolo Pansa, a right-wing commentator, said Berlusconi was "a dead man walking". (ANI)