Italian President Giorgio Napolitano has started crisis
talks with the political leaders after Prime Minister Romano Prodi resigned Thursday.
Romano Prodi’s resignation was announced after his
center-lef coalition lost a confidence vote in the Italian Senate.
Prodi had tried his best to keep his center-left coalition
from collapsing. "Halting the
action of the government for several months is a luxury that Italy cannot
afford. This is the reason why I am asking for your vote of confidence. I'm
asking everyone of you ladies and gentlemen, members of the Senate for
confidence to relaunch with new power and new awareness, a wider reforming
process that our country urgently needs now, " he said during his speech in Senate.
Prodi, who stepped in in April 2006, has lost the support of
his former Justice Minister Clemente Mastella and his small, Christian Democrat
Udeur party.
The center-left government fell four votes short of the 160
needed for victory. The vote was 161-156.
The defeat came after on Wednesday, Romano Prodi won a confidence
vote in the lower Chamber of Deputies.
Prodi, who resigned after only 20 months as Prime Minister, says
he will not stand again for premier. Romano Prodi, who remains caretaker prime
minister, also refused to lead an interim government.
"I don't think I am the right person for the job,"
he told reporters. "I'll just be a grandfather." Prodi canceled a
trip to Washington next month but confirmed he
would be in London
on Tuesday for a four-nation European summit.
A former professor of economics and European Commission
president, Prodi realigned Rome's foreign policy
upon taking office by putting Europe before the United States, unlike the
conservative government before him.
Now, the Italian President Napolitano wants to form an
interim government in place to oversee changes to the electoral system which is
widely blamed for Italy's
chronic political instability.
He began the talks with political leaders on Friday,
starting with Senate President Franco Marini, who is seen as a possible
candidate to lead an interim government. He also has met with Chamber of
Deputies President Fausto Bertinotti.
Napolitano has scheduled 24 meetings, which are due to end
on January 29, when he consults with former President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.
Meanwhile, the former premier Silvio Berlusconi is pushing
for early elections, three years ahead of schedule, because, his party Forza
Italy is leading the polls.
"There is no reason to waste any more time, we must go
to the polls as quickly as possible,"
Berlusconi, 71, said on Friday at a packed rally in Naples. Berlusconi, a
media mogul and Italy's
richest man, worth $11.8 billion according to Forbes magazine, is eager to
return to office.
However, the political observers say Napolitano is unlikely
to send voters back to the ballot box before Italy's widely criticized electoral
law is overhauled.
