ROME, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Support for Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right party continues to slide after the premier's split with former ally Gianfranco Fini, a new opinion poll showed on Sunday.
Berlusconi’s People of Freedom party would get 29.7 percent of the vote if elections were held now, down two points from July, according to an ISPO poll conducted last week and published in the Corriere della Sera newspaper.
Hit by a widening corruption scandal and a painful austerity budget this year, Berlusconi’s popularity has come under more pressure lately due to the acrimonious split with Fini. The two parted ways in July, raising the spectre of early polls.
Berlusconi on Saturday backed off from a controversial judicial reform plan and expressed confidence that Italy would avoid early elections — a move the newspaper speculated was tied to the slide in ratings.
The separatist Northern League has gained from Berlusconi’s woes and would garner 11.5 percent of the vote, the poll showed.
Fini’s breakaway group would pocket 6.3 percent of the vote, with some of its support coming from traditionally centrist or left-leaning voters.
The main opposition Democratic Party, beset with infighting and weak leadership, would get 27 percent of the vote — well below the 33 percent level it enjoyed in the 2008 elections.
"Overall, it seems to confirm the supremacy of the centre right," pollster Renato Mannheimer wrote in the newspaper.
"If voters were to vote tomorrow in line with what they’ve said, the alliance between Berlusconi and the League would perhaps still prevail.
