Prodi Pushes to Form New Government

Romano Prodi announced today the start of efforts to try and form Italy's next government, despite prime minister Silvio Berlusconi's continued refusal to concede defeat in the general election and demands for a large-scale vote recount.

Amid fears of a possible political deadlock lasting months, Mr Prodi, the former European commission president whose centre-left coalition secured a wafer-thin victory in the election on Monday and Tuesday, told French-based Europe 1 radio that he would begin discussing the composition of his new cabinet in the next few days.

"We have already had preliminary meetings," he explained.

However, with Mr Berlusconi, the 69-year-old billionaire media tycoon who has governed Italy for five years, refusing to back down, Mr Prodi, 66, looked unlikely to be able to form a new administration for a month at the very least.

Under Italy's constitution, it is the president - a largely ceremonial position chosen by MPs - who must invite the winner of a general election to form a government, which is then put to a confidence vote in both houses of parliament.

Current president Azeglio Ciampi's term ends on May 18 and he has indicated he wants his successor to name the new prime minister. Some newspapers said Mr Prodi had wanted Mr Ciampi to nominate him immediately, but the president refused.

"The constitutional decision is that probably it will be the new president who will decide to give me the responsibility to govern," Mr Prodi told Europe 1. "So we would have to wait until the second half of May." A successor to Mr Ciampi will be chosen by national and regional lawmakers on May 12-13.

Mr Prodi rejected Mr Berlusconi's call yesterday for a German-type "grand coalition" to govern the nation, insisting this was unnecessary. "There is no need for a Germany-styled coalition because we have the majority to govern," he said.

In balloting for the lower house, Mr Prodi's coalition won only 28,000 more votes than Mr Berlusconi's centre-right grouping, led by his Forza Italia party, out of 38.1m votes cast, a margin lower than the 43,000 spoiled ballots.

However, under an electoral system intended to promote political stability by awarding extra seats to a winning coalition, Mr Prodi's side now has 348 seats in the lower house, compared with 281 for Mr Berlusconi's bloc and one independent. In the Senate, where seats are allocated differently, Mr Prodi has a slim margin of 158 to 156, with one independent.

Much depends on whether Mr Berlusconi continues to try and block his opponent. Speaking at a press conference alongside the leaders of his coalition partners yesterday, the prime minister labelled Mr Prodi "absolutely irresponsible" for claiming victory. "For now, no one can say they have won," he insisted.

Mr Berlusconi has requested that the spoiled ballots be rechecked, a process expected to be completed by Friday. But it remains to be seen whether he will push for a fuller recount, or challenge the result in the courts, a move which could greatly prolong the uncertainty.

Using the term "civil war", Mr Berlusconi indicated yesterday that even if the voting figures were accurate, the opposition would not have a moral right to form the next government because the country was so evenly split.

Roberto Maroni of the Northern League, one of Mr Berlusconi's allies, immediately distanced himself from this, saying: "If these results are confirmed, then the centre-left will have not only a right, but a duty, to govern."

Italy's longest serving prime minister since the second world war, Mr Berlusconi has spent much of his time in office buffeted by allegations of corruption and struggling to reignite a sluggish national economy.

In last-ditch efforts to boost his centre-right coalition, comprising Forza Italia alongside the former neo-fascist National Alliance, pro-Vatican groups and the anti-immigrant Northern League, Berlusconi pledged a series of tax cuts and launched personal attacks on his opponents.

Mr Prodi, 66, who defeated Mr Berlusconi in Italy's 1996 election before he headed to Brussels, heads a potentially unwieldy alliance of Christian Democrats, liberals, greens and communists.