| Posted because nobody does political theater better than the Italians. |
Opponents always said Prodi would be unable to hold together his broad alliance, which spans diehard communists to Roman Catholic moderates, but few expected the cracks to emerge even before Prodi had formally taken office.
| Oh please, this is Italy! |
The major tussle is over the lower house, with two political heavyweights -- Communist Refoundation head Fausto Bertinotti and the chairman of the Democrats of the Left (DS), Massimo DÂ’Alema -- demanding the job. La Stampa newspaper quoted Bertinotti as saying he might withdraw from ProdiÂ’s Union alliance if he does not get the nod while the DS has indicated that as the largest party within the centre-left coalition, it deserves the job.
Prodi told reporters on Friday he was working to resolve the dispute, saying all sides had promised to accept his decision. “It is not going to be a difficult decision, even if it is obviously going to be a painful one,” said Prodi, whose previous term as prime minister ended after just two years in 1998 when Bertinotti turned against him.
Adding to ProdiÂ’s woes, the head of another small coalition party, the centrist Democratic Union for Europe (UDEUR), said he was unhappy with the centre-left leaderÂ’s first steps and threatened to quit the alliance unless things changed quickly. Clemente Mastella, in a pugnacious interview in the Roman Catholic daily Avvenire, did not spell out what his demands were, but other newspapers speculated that he was seeking to be named either upper house speaker or defence minister.