Former premier Silvio Berlusconi has attacked the decision by Mario Monti to run in Italy's general elections and vowed to launch a probe into the 2011 fall of his own government and appointment of Mr Monti as Italy's premier.
Mr Berlusconi spoke out after Mr Monti announced he would head a coalition of centrist forces, businessmen and pro-Vatican forces in the February elections.
Mr Berlusconi said he never expected Mr Monti to renege on repeated assurances that he "wouldn't use the public prominence as head of a technical government for an ulterior presence in politics".
He said the decision represented a "loss of credibility" for Mr Monti, a respected economist and former European commissioner. Mr Berlusconi said if he is elected premier he would immediately launch a parliamentary inquiry into the fall of his own government.
"There was a serious wound to democracy inflicted not just on us but on all Italians," Mr Berlusconi said.
Mr Berlusconi's People of Freedom party, beset by corruption scandals and still tainted by Mr Berlusconi's ill-fated last term, trails in the polls behind the centre-left Democratic Party.
The Democrats, headed by Pier Luigi Bersani, are expected to win the election with 30% of the vote.
Mr Monti was named by Italy's president to lead a technical government after Mr Berlusconi, hobbled by sex scandals, legal woes and defections from his party, was forced to resign in November 2011 amid Italy's slide into the eurozone's debt crisis.
Mr Berlusconi's party, parliament's largest, initially supported Mr Monti, backing tax rises, raising the retirement age and other unpopular reforms to restore Italy's financial credibility.
But earlier this month, Mr Berlusconi withdrew his party's support, accusing Mr Monti's government of leading Italy into a "spiral of recession". Mr Monti promptly resigned, forcing elections to be moved up by about two months.
European leaders made clear they wanted Mr Monti to bid for a second term.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article