Crisis talks in Italy after Prodi resignation

ITALY’S president began talks with political leaders yesterday to discuss the formation of a new government following the end of Romano Prodi’s nine-month-old administration.

Prodi resigned on Wednesday evening after losing a key parliamentary vote on foreign policy, including plans to keep Italian troops in Afghanistan. He is staying on in a caretaker role.

The talks at the presidential palace were aimed at working out which political leaders, if any, might be able to muster enough support for a parliamentary majority and thus avoid a new election.

President Giorgio Napolitano may ask Mr Prodi or another leader from his coalition to form a new centre-left government.

Alternatively he could ask an institutional figure above the political fray to form a government, possibly with broad support from both coalitions. Or he could call an election.

Observers say that Mr Napolitano would be unlikely to call elections so far ahead of the next scheduled vote in 2011.

The premier’s aides did not rule out the possibility that Mr Napolitano would ask Mr Prodi to form another government, and from first discussions among some allies, support for another Prodi government seemed to be building.

But with a senate he cannot fully control and a diverse coalition that ranges from Communists to Christian Democrats, any new Prodi government supported by the same forces would be dogged by instability.

Mr Prodi had been facing rebellion from his coalition’s radical leftists, who oppose the government’s military mission in Afghanistan and the planned expansion of a US base in northern Italy.

His resignation after only nine months and following the closest election in Italy’s post-war history raised concerns the years of “revolving-doors” governments were back.