Italy’s Prodi struggles with coalition strife

JUST two days after his election victory was confirmed, Italy’s prime minister-in-waiting, Romano Prodi, struggled yesterday to contain a row within his centre-left coalition that boded ill for his future government.

Opponents always said Mr 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 Mr Prodi had formally taken office.

The fight centres on who should be made speakers of the two houses of parliament. The posts are highly prestigious and Mr Prodi’s three main coalition partners are all pressing for their candidates to be chosen.

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 D’Alema - demanding the job.

La Stampa newspaper quoted Mr Bertinotti as saying he might withdraw from Mr Prodi’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.

“I am very embittered and very astonished,” Mr D’Alema, a former prime minister, was quoted as saying. “We are giving our coalition a terrible image and the choice of Bertinotti is divisive.”

Mr Prodi denied that there were any rumbles of discontent within the DS.

“They have asked me to play the referee and I’ll do this with serenity and calm,” said Mr Prodi, whose previous term as prime minister ended after just two years in 1998 when Mr Bertinotti turned against him.

Adding to Mr Prodi’s woes, the head of another small coalition party, the centrist Democratic Union for Europe (UDEUR), said he was unhappy with the centre-left leader’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 said he wanted to be named either upper house speaker or defence minister.