ROME (AFP) — Italy's Prime Minister Romano Prodi, fighting to the bitter end to save his fractious centre-left government, is set to decide Thursday whether to face a vote of confidence in a hostile Senate or throw in the towel.
Facing almost certain defeat in the Senate after several defections of former allies, the prime minister will meet President Giorgio Napolitano before taking the decision, media reports said.
Thursday's newspapers were awash with doomsday headlines for the former economics professor nicknamed "Il Professore" -- "Prodi's Ultimate Battle," "Final Challenge," or "Judgement Day."
The right-wing Il Libero daily of Milan smelt blood and did not mince its words, asking: "Are You Still Here? Please Go."
In a meeting with Napolitano on Wednesday, the president advised Prodi, 68, to consider resigning instead of going ahead with Thursday's Senate vote, set for 8:00 pm (1900 GMT), Italian media reported.
"It will be Il Professore's last attempt at magic, before a public that has become not just skeptical, but nervously disenchanted," commented the Corriere della Sera daily.
Prodi's conservative predecessor Silvio Berlusconi has been buoyed by the government crisis, the most serious of its 20 months in power, and is clamouring for early elections in Italy, which has seen more than 60 governments come and go since World War II.
Three recent voter surveys show the Italian right with double-digit leads over the left.
On Wednesday, after the prime minister comfortably won a vote of confidence in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house, several members of his cabinet urged him to face the Senate despite his all-too-likely defeat.
Defence Minister Arturo Parisi told Italian television late Wednesday that Prodi was leaning towards facing the vote. "What is certain is that the direction he is going is to confront the matter in public," he told reporters.
Prodi's one-seat advantage in the Senate evaporated this week with the defection of the Catholic UDEUR party.
The fate of the centre-left leader, who won 2006 elections by a handful of votes, was all but sealed as two leftist senators added their names to the "no" column.
As a result, the opposition has a theoretical edge of up to five votes even if six senators-for-life cast ballots in support of Prodi, according to an AFP tally based on press reports.
Whether Prodi resigns or loses a Senate showdown, Napolitano would then have to decide between calling elections or setting up a transitional government until badly needed electoral reforms are enacted.
Political scientist Roberto D'Alimonte told AFP that elections were more likely, since an interim government "would be against the wishes" of Berlusconi and his right-wing allies, the National Alliance and the Northern League.
Prodi's government, which ranges from far-left communists to centrist Catholics, has faced a series of close votes in the upper house in his 20 months in office. It fell briefly in February 2007, but was reinstated after a close vote of confidence in the Senate.
Facing growing calls for early elections, Prodi defended his performance in a defiant speech to parliament on Tuesday.
"This is a government that has put the country back on its feet," the former European Commission president said, noting an economic turnaround from negative growth under Berlusconi.
The crisis for the Prodi government was sparked by centrist Clemente Mastella's resignation as justice minister last week.
On Monday, Mastella's UDEUR party, whose three votes have been crucial in the Senate, said it would oppose Prodi in a vote of confidence, complaining of lack of support from the ruling coalition.
Mastella resigned after being named in a corruption probe along with his wife. Both have protested their innocence.
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