Crisis Talks Begin After Prodi Resignation

The Italian president, Giorgio Napolitano, today began crisis talks with Italian politicians after the resignation of the prime minister, Romano Prodi, yesterday.

Mr Prodi resigned after only 10 months in office following an unexpected parliamentary defeat over his coalition government's alliance with the US and role in Nato.

Mr Napolitano will meet the heads of political parties, parliamentary group leaders and former presidents, and the consultations will end after talks with his predecessor, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, tomorrow evening.

A spokesman for the presidential office said the discussions would be wide-ranging "due to the complexity" of the situation.

Mr Prodi will stay on in a caretaker role, and the presidential talks will determine which political leaders -if any - could muster enough support for a parliamentary majority, thus avoiding the need for new elections.

Mr Napolitano could ask Mr Prodi, or another leader from his nine-party coalition, to form a new centre-left government.

He could also ask an institutional figure to form a government, or could call new elections.

The possibility of Mr Prodi forming a new government has not been ruled out, with a grouping of core parties in his coalition yesterday saying they were prepared to back him again.

His spokesman said he was ready to carry on as prime minister "if, and only if, he is guaranteed the full support of all the parties in his majority from now on".

However, the diversity of his coalition and a Senate he is unable to fully control means any new Prodi government would be afflicted by the same instability.

In an attempt to avoid that danger, some centre-left party leaders were looking to MPs who had left the conservative bloc led by Silvio Berlusconi.

"Giving Prodi a new mandate is the obvious way to go - but it is an insidious one," Stefano Folli, an Italian political analyst, said. "It's necessary to avoid the same mistakes and contradictions that have led to this downfall."

Mr Napolitano's talks began when he met the Senate speaker, Franco Marini, who is considered a possible leader for an institutional government.

Many observers believe the president would be unlikely to call elections so far ahead of the next scheduled poll in 2011, while some political leaders have called for a change to the current proportional representation system, which is seen as encouraging small parties and leading to instability.

Mr Prodi's resignation followed the closest election in postwar Italian history, raising fears that the years of "revolving-door" government would return following relative stability in recent years.

Discontent on the left of his coalition over the extension of a US military base and Italy's open-ended commitment to the Nato-led force in Afghanistan lay behind a two-vote defeat.

Because he had not lost a formal confidence vote, Mr Prodi was not obliged to stand down, but - amid raucous scenes - members of the rightwing opposition claimed he had been stripped of his credibility.

"There is no majority any more," declared a jubilant Renato Schifani, chief senate whip to Mr Berlusconi, whom Mr Prodi defeated in last year's general election last year. "There is no Prodi government any more."

The foreign minister, Massimo D'Alema, had said on the eve of the vote that the government should go if it lost.