Italian Premier Romano Prodi resigned yesterday after nine
months in office following an embarrassing loss by his center-left
government in the Senate on foreign policy, including Italy's
military mission in Afghanistan.
Prodi?handed in his resignation during a meeting with
President Giorgio Napolitano.
According to media reports, the secretary-general of the
president's office, Donato Marra, said Napolitano had "reserved his
decision" on whether to accept the resignation pending
consultations with political leaders.
Political analysts said the president could ask Prodi to verify
whether his nine-month-old government holds a parliamentary
majority by calling a confidence vote.
Napolitano could also formally accept Prodi's resignation if the
outcome of?their talks indicates that the government lacks
parliamentary support.
The consultations will begin this morning, reports said.
A spokesman for the main parties in Prodi's nine-way coalition
said the parties were ready to back the premier in a confidence
vote.
The government failed to make the majority by two votes in the
Senate yesterday, with 158 senators voting in favor of its foreign
policy line, 136 against and 24 abstaining.
The ballot was not a confidence vote and there was no
constitutional requirement for Prodi to resign.
But Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema had said in advance that
the government should quit if it lost the vote as a "constitutional
principle."
Chaos broke out in both chambers of parliament after the vote,
with the Silvio Berlusconi-led opposition greeting the result with
a chorus of "quit, quit, quit."
Berlusconi issued a statement saying "Prodi must resign
immediately for reasons of political, constitutional and ethical
consistency."
In recent days Prodi has upset pacifist and hard-leftist allies
in his coalition by refusing to withdraw Italian troops from a
peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan, and approving the expansion of
a US military base in the northern city of Vicenza.
The premier has a solid majority in the House but holds only one
more seat than the opposition in the Senate, where the government
had been expecting extra help from a handful of life senators.
But of the seven life senators, former president Francesco
Cossiga voted against the government, two abstained including
seven-time former premier Giulio Andreotti and another was absent
for health reasons.
The premier was also dealt a blow when Senator Franco
Turigliatto of the Communist Refoundation Party (PRC), resigned in
protest at the government's foreign policy just before the vote.
Another leftist senator, Ferdinando Rossi, joined Turigliatto in
abstaining, according to reports.
Given that abstentions in the Senate essentially count as
negative votes, the actions of Rossi, Turigliatto and the two life
senators were decisive.
The government has been forced in the past to resort to
confidence votes to maintain coalition unity in the Senate on
foreign policy issues.
(Xinhua News Agency February 22, 2007)
