Mr Berlusconi pledged to deport 600,000 illegal immigrants.
Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has pledged to deport 600,000 illegal immigrants from the country if his right-wing coalition wins the general election on March 4.
 |
| Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. (Source: AFP/VNA) |
According to a VNA reporter in Rome, on February 5, former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who is also the leader of the Forza Italia (FI) party, pledged to deport 600,000 illegal immigrants from the country if his right-wing coalition wins the general election on March 4.
Speaking in a television interview, Mr. Berlusconi stressed that the issue of illegal immigration was “a social bomb ready to explode in Italy.”
Mr. Berlusconi also assessed that the shooting that injured 6 African immigrants on February 3 in the city of Macerata, Central Italy, is causing security concerns.
The immigration issue has become a pressing issue because after years of leftist government rule, there are now 600,000 illegal immigrants who have no right to stay in the country.
Regarding the possibility of forming an alliance with other political parties, Mr. Berlusconi affirmed that the chance for his right-wing to form a grand coalition with the ruling center-left Democratic Party (PD) after the upcoming election is impossible.
If no party wins enough seats to form a government in the next election, Italian voters will need to go to the polls again.
Mr Berlusconi's right-wing coalition currently includes the centre-right FI party and two other far-right parties, the Northern League (LN) and Brothers of Italy (Fdl).
According to opinion polls, the right wing is currently dominant with a support rate of around 37%, but is still not capable of winning the necessary majority of votes in the upcoming general election.