ROME (AFP) — Embattled Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi on Tuesday put his political survival on the line, calling for a vote of confidence in his centre-left government after 20 months in power.
Facing growing calls for early elections, Prodi reviewed his team's performance "with pride" in a defiant speech before the lower Chamber of Deputies.
Prodi, 68, whose coalition ranges from far-left communists to centrist Catholics, will face a vote of confidence on Wednesday in the lower house where the coalition has a comfortable majority.
The make-or-break test, however, will be on Thursday in the Senate, where the defection of a key ally has left the government with a two-seat deficit.
"This is a government that has put the country back on its feet," the former economics professor said, noting an economic turnaround from negative growth under his predecessor Silvio Berlusconi.
In an unusually pugnacious speech, the leader nicknamed "Il Professore" ticked off his government's accomplishments such as heading the peacekeeping force in Lebanon, catching tax evaders and fighting organised crime.
The crisis was sparked when centrist Clemente Mastella resigned as justice minister last week and on Monday said his small UDEUR party would oppose Prodi in a vote of confidence.
UDEUR's three votes have been crucial in the Senate, where the government's survival will now depend on the support of left-leaning senators-for-life, who have cast crucial votes on several occasions to prop up the centre-left.
The Prodi government fell briefly in February last year, but was reinstated after a vote of confidence in the Senate.
If it falls again, President Giorgio Napolitano could call early elections, name a caretaker government or ask the speaker of the Senate or the Chamber of Deputies to form an "institutional" government.
The centre-right opposition led by Berlusconi is clamouring for elections.
A survey published last week revealed a record number of undecided voters -- 42 percent -- but of those willing to pick sides, 55 percent were in favour of right-wing parties and 43.5 percent for the left.
Debate ahead of the vote of confidence in the lower house, set for 5:00 pm (1600 GMT) on Wednesday, will give Prodi a chance to assess his coalition's fighting spirit ahead of the Senate vote.
Prodi is "not going to pack up and leave without putting up a fight," said Franco Pavoncello of the American University of Rome.
"His strategy of calling for a confidence vote in the lower house (first) is smart. ... It probably will give him momentum to face the Senate," Pavoncello told AFP.
A foreign policy vote briefly brought down the Prodi government in February last year, but Mastella's resignation -- the first by a minister from the Prodi government -- has brought the threat to a new level.
Mastella resigned after being named in a corruption probe along with his wife. Both have protested their innocence.
Observers say his decision stemmed more from the prospect of electoral reform through a popular referendum later this year that would ring the death knell for small political parties such as UDEUR -- which won just 1.4 percent of the vote in 2006 elections.
"The electoral system as it is now is unacceptable," Pavoncello said. If Prodi's "majority were translated to the Senate, we wouldn't have this gridlock."
Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni, elected in an American-style primary in October to head the Democratic Party, a merger of the centre-left's two largest formations, spoke out Tuesday against snap elections under the current legislation.
"I'm firmly convinced that if we go to elections with this electoral law whoever wins will win, but the country will remain ungovernable," Veltroni said.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
