Italy’s Government Tottering as Prime Minister Loses Support

[Strengthandhonour]

Italy’s Government Tottering as Prime Minister Loses Support


ROME — Italy’s staggering government appeared near collapse on Monday after the former justice minister said he would no longer support Prime Minister Romano Prodi, who holds a one-vote majority in Parliament’s upper house.
The justice minister, Clemente Mastella, resigned last week amid accusations of corruption, saying at the time that he would continue to pledge his three votes in the Senate to Mr. Prodi’s center-left coalition. But with several crucial votes looming — including one on the continuing garbage crisis in Naples — Mr. Mastella called a surprise news conference to say he had changed his mind.
“This majority doesn’t exist anymore,” he told reporters, calling for new elections. “I will not negotiate. I will not discuss. It’s over.”
Mr. Prodi, whose fractured nine-party coalition has lurched from one crisis to another since he took office in May 2006, made no immediate comment. Several allies said, however, that he would discuss the crisis in the lower house of Parliament on Tuesday before deciding whether to resign.
“We will see what happens tomorrow,” said Senator Roberto Manzione, leaving a late-night meeting with Mr. Prodi and party leaders. “Because it is right that everything takes place in the institutions that make decisions.”
Mr. Prodi has counted on crucial votes from seven honorary senators appointed for life who leaned to the political left, though this time he was unable to be certain of their support. But even if he resigns, the path ahead for the nation is unclear.
There is widespread agreement among politicians, even Mr. Prodi’s opponents, that the nation’s electoral law needs to be changed before any new vote. The law, rushed into place by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi before he lost the 2006 elections, is widely blamed for creating a thin majority in the Senate — and thus political instability no matter who wins.
But on Monday, Mr. Berlusconi, who leads Italy’s most popular party and is the nation’s richest man, still called for immediate elections.
“The crisis was already evident in the facts,” he said after Mr. Mastella withdrew his support for Mr. Prodi. “Now it is indispensable and urgent to give the word back to the citizens.”
But Mr. Berlusconi could also face difficulties in any election. In recent weeks, he has broken with his main allies in the center-right, making it potentially difficult for him to form a majority in Parliament even if he were to win elections.
Mr. Prodi, an economics professor who served as prime minister from 1996 to 1998, resigned briefly last February after several supporters on the far left withdrew support in a vote over foreign policy. At the time, President Giorgio Napolitano gave Mr. Prodi the chance to bring his partners back together.
With Mr. Mastella apparently firm in his decision, though, and facing the additional pressures of the corruption investigation, it is unclear whether that option is available this time.
Another possible option is that Mr. Napolitano could call for an interim government of technocrats to oversee state business until elections could be called, presumably after a new election law is enacted.
A referendum on such a law was given court approval last week and, in theory, voting must take place before June 15. But many politicians dislike the proposed law because it would take power away from the many small parties in Italy, and it is possible that any interim government might seek to pass its own law before the referendum took place, thus negating it.
While Mr. Mastella’s announcement came as a surprise, he has long been among the least predictable of Italy’s politicians. The leader of a small Christian Democratic party, he served as a minister under Mr. Berlusconi.
Last week, his wife was placed under house arrest amid an investigation into extortion and influence-peddling in a local health care system in southern Italy. Italian news media have reported that Mr. Mastella is a target of that investigation. He denies any wrongdoing.




source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/22/wo...html?ref=world

[AzzurroItalia]

I'm not confident in this, man.

Prodi is a clown, but a magician as well. He almost always pulls it off....

I hope to be proven wrong.