Italy's president, Giorgi Napolitano, will begin consulting political leaders today on the country's future after the collapse last night of Romano Prodi's centre-left government.
| So goes the 62nd government since the end of WWII, 63 years ago. |
Silvio Berlusconi, the opposition leader who has a huge lead in opinion polls, called for a snap election. Napolitano is known to favour a transitional government to steer through electoral reform, but the media mogul who governed Italy until two years ago said the project was "senseless". What the country needed was a "new and authoritative" administration, he said. "We need to go to the polls in the shortest time possible without delay."
The senate, the upper house of the Italian parliament, doomed Prodi by voting down a confidence motion in his government by 161 votes to 156 with one abstention. Shortly afterwards, Prodi set off for the president's palace to hand in his resignation.
A member of Berlusconi's inner circle told the Guardian that he expected to be prime minister - a post he last held in 2006 - by autumn at the latest. Setting aside the bickering that has characterised the Italian right in recent months, their leader, Gianfranco Fini, said: "We feel ready to govern if the Italians will put their faith in us."
The Prodi government was plunged into crisis on Monday when it was deserted by a tiny party whose leader, the former justice minister, left the cabinet on learning he was a suspect in a corruption inquiry. Other small groups and some individuals subsequently peeled off. The odds against the government's survival had been stacking up since before Christmas.The former EU commission president's term of office has seen modest economic growth, but for many Italians its benefits have been offset by tax rises imposed to get the public finances within limits set by membership of the euro.
An announcement last month by the EU's statistical office that Spaniards were now earning more in real terms than Italians dented national morale.
| Just wait a few years when the news hits that the Iraqis are earning more in real terms than the Italians. We'll be up to the 72nd government on that. Or the 82nd. |
Days later rubbish began piling up in Naples - a tangible sign of political mismanagement and the pervasive influence on Italian society of organised crime. The rubbish crisis was the latest of several to which Prodi's government has reacted sluggishly. Its poor crisis management and incessant bickering within the coalition, began to wear down popular support.
According to the latest poll, carried out for the state-owned Rai broadcasting corporation, Berlusconi and his rightwing allies enjoy a 15-point lead. |