Prodi prepares to choose Cabinet

[Ferran]

Prodi prepares to choose Cabinet

But Berlusconi refuses to concede

Wednesday, April 12, 2006; Posted: 9:20 a.m. EDT (13:20 GMT)

An election poster for Silvio Berlusconi lies torn by the side of a road in Italy.

ROME, Italy (CNN) -- Italian opposition leader Romano Prodi has said he is on the brink of choosing his new government, shrugging off Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's refusal to concede defeat.

But even if his center-left coalition's victory survives a legal challenge launched by Berlusconi, his wafer-thin majority raised the prospect of political turmoil.

This is likely to be heightened by the delay of waiting for a new president to mandate the next government. Incumbent Carlo Azeglio Ciampi's term ends next month.

In an interview Wednesday with France's Europe 1 radio, Prodi said discussions would get under way in the next few days to select members of his Cabinet, The Associated Press reported.

"We already have had preliminary meetings," he said. "We will reflect together and then I alone will make the decision."

Berlusconi has dug his heels in over the vote, despite official results showing Prodi's coalition taking control of both houses of Parliament.

"There are big discrepancies and all these discrepancies have to be looked at and checked, so I don't think that these could be called the final results," the prime minister said in a nationally broadcast television address.

In a development on Wednesday, officials said they had found five ballot boxes full of votes in a garbage can in Rome, AP said.

The next step is for Italy's highest court to certify the vote. More than 43,000 of the 2 million ballots that were deemed blank or spoiled are being contested; Berlusconi's allies have demanded a scrupulous check of the counting.

Prodi's margin of victory in the lower house was around 25,000 votes, a tiny fraction of the 38 million votes cast.

The high court has until April 20 to certify the vote.

Assuming the current gridlock resolves before the end of the month, when the new Parliament is to assemble, the new president of the Italian republic would then give the mandate to the new prime minister to form a government. That means Italy will not have a new prime minister until the end of May at the earliest, political sources said.

Until then, Berlusconi, who has ruled the country for five years with a large majority in Parliament, would continue in a caretaker role.

The conservative media tycoon hinted Tuesday that, should control of one house of Parliament go to Prodi's center-left party and the other to his center-right party, he would consider the possibility of a coalition, similar to one in Germany.

But the proposal has garnered little support, even among his supporters.

In an earlier interview with CNN Bureau Chief Alessio Vinci, Prodi expressed confidence he would be able to lead on his own, despite the close vote.

He blamed Berlusconi for having polarized the country, and vowed to heal the rift, promising to work for "the whole of Italy ... not only those who voted for us but even those who have not voted for us."

The 66-year-old former economics professor, who served as prime minister from 1996 to 1998, also said he would work closely with the United States.

"My policy would be a European policy, but there is no policy of peace if there is not a Europe close to the United States," he said.

On one thing the two would-be prime ministers agree: each has vowed to withdraw Italy's nearly 3,000 troops from Iraq by the end of the year.

"We have been against the war, but that does not mean to be against the United States," Prodi said.

Berlusconi was less sanguine about Italy's prospects under a Prodi government. In his address to the nation, he said that a leftist majority "would be totally irresponsible and we would have to pay the consequences of that."

He added, "Nobody now can say the opposition won the elections. If, after verification, the math would favor the center left, which I doubt, they would have to explain how, with Italy split in two, they would be able to govern the country."

Both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate must approve a new government.

Analysts say a defeat for Berlusconi -- who, backed by a center-right coalition, has ruled the country for the past five years with a large majority in parliament -- would reflect that the media magnate had promised too much.

Most of the political parties have aligned themselves with either Berlusconi's conservative Casa delle Liberta (House of Freedoms) coalition, or Prodi's center-left Unione (Union). Voters are casting ballots for parties, not individuals.

Berlusconi, a fiery politician who has held office for five years, is the longest-serving leader in post-war Italy. Before the election, he said that if Italians voted for the coalition represented by Prodi, they would be voting for communists. Berlusconi had promised voters lower taxes and higher pensions.

Prodi, who is serious to the point where he is viewed as almost dull by some, vowed to jump-start Italy's economy, which had zero growth in 2005. He blamed the country's financial woes on the current government's poor economic policies. Prodi has promised to cut labor costs. He once headed the European Union's executive body, the European Commission.



Source: http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe...ons/index.html