Berlusconi Moves to Force Election in Italy

Silvio Berlusconi and his allies yesterday moved their battle to regain power in Italy on to new ground after the resignation of prime minister Romano Prodi and the collapse of his center-left government on Thursday night.

Berlusconi's spokesman, Paolo Bonaiuti, indicated that they aimed to scotch efforts by president Giorgio Napolitano to set up an interim administration charged with producing a new electoral law. "We must vote as quickly as possible to lift the country out of this quagmire," Bonaiuti said. The president last night began talks with political leaders that will last until Tuesday.

Many of Italy's politicians - and three-quarters of its voters, according to a recent poll - favor changing the electoral system. Introduced in 2005, it has created a parliament of 39 parties, making the country even less governable than in the past.

Berlusconi is not averse to a change. But he was only able to oust the center-left because of the defection to his camp of two Lilliputian parties whose leaders will demand strong opposition to electoral reform as the price of their support.

The reasons they deserted will be crucial to a rancorous postmortem in the center and on the left. As the knives came out, the man who looked most vulnerable was Walter Veltroni, the mayor of Rome.

Last autumn he was chosen to lead a new Democratic party, formed by the two main centre-left groups. He held talks with Berlusconi to see if they could agree on a formula for eliminating smaller parties. Then, earlier this month, he declared that the Democratic party would stand alone at the next election - implying the smallest groups would have no role to play at a time the government depended on them.