Hydrablog

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Italy-Politics.html
February 24, 2007
Italy’s President Urges Premier to Stay
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:54 a.m. ET [Italy] [EU] [extraordinary renditions] [followup to last week’s series on Italy’s tumultuous-parliamentary politics] [******]
ROME (AP) -- Italy's president asked Romano Prodi on Saturday to stay on as premier and put his center-left government to a new vote of confidence in parliament, seeking a swift end to the political crisis prompted by the Cabinet's resignation days ago.
Prodi has demanded commitments from the parties in his coalition to support government policy, and he promised Saturday that he can command a majority in parliament.
''I will seek a vote of confidence as soon as possible, with renewed impetus and a united and determined coalition,'' [****] Prodi said after meeting with the president.
But with a Senate majority constantly threatened and allies who have proven less than reliable, the new effort by Prodi risks the same instability that led to his resignation on Wednesday after nine months in the post.
President Giorgio Napolitano said there was not sufficient support for a broad-coalition government, as demanded by former Premier Silvio Berlusconi and other conservatives. He said most party leaders agreed that early elections without a change in Italy's electoral law -- which has increased the influence of small parties -- was pointless.
''There was no alternative,'' Napolitano told reporters. [*******]
Prodi stepped down on Wednesday after an embarrassing parliamentary defeat over foreign policy, including the government's plan to keep troops in Afghanistan. Defections by radical leftists were to blame.
Following the resignation, all coalition allies told Napolitano they were ready to support any bids by Prodi to return to the premiership. They signed up to a new detailed government program that Prodi said would be ''nonnegotiable.''
The 12-point platform calls for respecting Italy's international commitments in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and gives the premier the final word on any disagreement in the squabbling coalition. [****]
‘’We must defend this government, defend the political stability of this country … and defend the credibility of the Italian left,’’ said Massimo D’Alema, the foreign minister.
The votes next week will test Prodi’s majority.
He has a comfortable margin in the lower house of parliament. But his majority in the Senate is not guaranteed, leading center-left leaders to frantically count the numbers of senators they can rely on and courting outsiders – mostly a few moderates and Catholics – in an effort to broaden the coalition.
‘’It’s a meat market of senators,’’ said Fabrizio Cicchitto, a leading member of Berlusconi’s Forza Italia party. ‘’We have reached a point of unbelievable degradation.’’ [*****]
Center-left leaders are also trying to rally the support of some of seven honorary senators appointed for life.
''The fact that the Senate may vote the confidence doesn't mean that the government will have the necessary numbers to govern,'' said Stefano Folli, a leading political analyst who writes for the financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore. ''The worst part begins the following day.''
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press