Italy faces political limbo
Wed Apr 12, 2006 6:44 PM BST
By Silvia Aloisi
ROME (Reuters) - Italy faced protracted political limbo on Wednesday as Romano Prodi said he may not be able to form a new government before mid-May and a dispute over
alleged irregularities in this week's election added to the confusion.
Prodi has claimed a wafer-thin victory for his centre-left bloc in the April 9-10 poll but Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has refused to concede defeat and demanded checks on disputed ballots, saying there were "many murky aspects" to the vote.
The election was the closest in Italy's post-war history, with the centre-left winning in the lower house by a margin of just 25,000 votes out of 38.1 million cast.
The tight result has left many Italians wondering how long the next government will last and financial markets fretting that Prodi
will not have a big enough majority to push through unpopular reforms needed to revive the flagging economy.
Prodi insisted on Wednesday that his victory was clear-cut and said he did not fear a review of the disputed ballots.
"I don't have any fear whatsoever that the result will be overturned. It is a clean victory," he told reporters.
He said he would probably have to wait until a new head of state was appointed by parliament next month before he could form a government.
As if to
confirm a down-to-earth image that could not be more different from that of permanently suntanned Berlusconi, Prodi later walked into Rome's main station and took a train up to his native Bologna, where a victory party awaited him.
Under the constitution, it is up to the head of state to nominate a new government after consultation with party leaders.
[b]Prodi had wanted President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi to name him prime minister but Ciampi, whose term ends on May 18, indicated again on Wednesday that he wanted his successor to do this.[/b]
Ciampi's office
said the long delay before a new government could be appointed was a "constitutional obligation". The new parliament is due to convene on April 28. The Senate, lower house and regional representatives will then vote on May 12-13 to elect a successor to Ciampi.
[b]NO GRAND COALITION[/b]
[b]Prodi and his allies, who stretch from Roman Catholic centrists to communists, held talks on Wednesday after they flatly rejected Berlusconi's proposal to consider a German-style grand coalition in which left and right would share power.[/b]
"This type of discussion of having some kind of a wider agreement is a thing that belongs to the past and today there is a majority, the majority has the right and the duty to govern," communist leader Fausto Bertinotti said after meeting Prodi.
[b]On Tuesday, Berlusconi said some 40,000 disputed ballots had to be checked before either side could claim victory[/b].
Such checks are routinely carried out by local authorities after an election and were expected to be completed by Friday.
Most
commentators said the review was unlikely to alter the result and centre-right leaders kept a low profile on Wednesday, some ministers appearing to have accepted Prodi's win.
But it was unclear whether Berlusconi's camp would be satisfied with a simple review of the ballots or planned a further legal challenge.
[b]Possibly giving the centre-right fresh ammunition to question the results, police found boxes containing valid filled in ballot sheets near a rubbish bin in Rome.[/b]
Italy's electoral system, which gives a premium of extra seats to the winning coalition, means
Prodi's side has 348 seats in the lower house against 281 for Berlusconi's bloc.
In the upper house, where seats are allocated differently, Prodi's bloc has just 158 against 156 for the centre-right.
Fearing a political stalemate, Milan stocks traded lower all morning after falling more than 2 percent on Tuesday. But they closed slightly up, taking the uncertainty in their stride, and the first bond auction since the election met reasonable demand.
[b]Prodi, whose victory has not yet been confirmed by the Interior Ministry[/b],
has already been congratulated by France, Spain, Luxembourg and the European Commission.
[b]Washington, which saw Berlusconi as its strongest ally in continental Europe, has said it will wait for the final results.[/b]
The President appoints the Prime Minister, whose government must receive a vote of confidence from both parliamentary chambers.
President
The president of Italy was elected to a seven-year term by both of the houses of Parliament. In Italy the president must be at least 50 years old. They show the prime minister, who forms the government.
If the president of Italy is sick, the president of the Italian Senate takes over the job.
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