Prodi faces another vote of confidence

Italian prime minister Romano Prodi’s government is facing a confidence vote in parliament’s lower house today.

He is widely expected to get the win needed to formally end the weeklong crisis that threatened to topple the Italian Cabinet.

If the government loses the vote it must resign, but Prodi’s centre-left coalition enjoys a comfortable majority in the Chamber of Deputies and is certain to win.

Prodi passed his toughest test on Wednesday when the government narrowly won a confidence vote in the Senate, which is almost evenly split between the ruling centre-left and the conservative opposition.

The premier resigned last week after some far-leftists in his fractious coalition refused to back the government in a key Senate vote on foreign policy and on Italy’s military mission in Afghanistan.

The Italian president asked Prodi to stay on and put the nine-month-old Cabinet to new confidence votes in parliament.

A Prodi fall could have led to a broad coalition government or early elections. But centre-left allies have put differences aside, at least momentarily, and have vowed to support the premier – largely to avert a return to power of their archenemy, conservative leader Silvio Berlusconi.