ROME (AFP) — Italian opposition leader Silvio Berlusconi on Wednesday rejected a proposed overhaul of the country's electoral system, insisting instead on speedy elections.
"We do not agree that the electoral law needs changing right away," said Berlusconi, the figurehead of Italy's conservative opposition.
President Giorgio Napolitano, mediating in Italy's political crisis since the resignation last week of prime minister Romano Prodi, said earlier Wednesday he had asked Senate head Franco Marini to consider whether a transitional government might push through electoral law reform.
Experts doubt whether an overhaul of Italy's convoluted electoral law is feasible in the current political atmosphere.
"Marini can't succeed," political scientist Roberto D'Alimonte told AFP. "It's a mission impossible."
Napolitano is resisting calls from the right for new elections, saying the law should be changed first to ensure that a stable government emerges from new polls.
"Dissolution of parliament is a serious decision," the president said after talks with Marini, who told reporters: "I accept this difficult and serious role, I will act very quickly and with full determination."
In an opinion poll published by RAI state television on Sunday, half of Italians surveyed were opposed to early elections.
The meeting between Marini and Napolitano came hours after Berlusconi, whose Forza Italia party is riding high in opinion polls, called for new elections.
Berlusconi said: "There is no room for talks" on electoral reform. "If the prime minister is the victim of a no confidence vote, there is no alternative but to return to the ballot box," he said.
The head of Italy's employers' federation Confindustria, Luca Cordero Di Montezemolo, meanwhile called for a reform of the electoral law before any election to limit "the veto of tiny parties".
Prodi resigned as premier on January 24 after losing a Senate vote of confidence, ending 20 months of government by his fragile centre-left coalition.
He lost his slim Senate majority after a small centrist Catholic party withdrew from his coalition last week.
It was Berlusconi who pushed through the current electoral law shortly before the April 2006 elections, in a bid to minimise the extent of the expected centre-left victory.
The voting, entirely by proportional representation, saw 22 parties win seats in parliament, with most of the tiniest on the left, resulting in an unstable coalition.
Berlusconi is backed by his traditional allies, far-right National Alliance leader Gianfranco Fini, and populist Northern League head Umberto Bossi.
The new leader of the left, Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni, does not want elections for several months.
Veltroni told reporters Tuesday he had proposed a transitional government to rule until at least early 2009.
Napolitano, a former communist, held four days of talks with political leaders across the board on how to end the political uncertainty following Prodi's resignation.
He said Tuesday that the situation was "complicated and difficult" because of the "fragmentation" of the political landscape.
Berlusconi, buoyed by three recent voter surveys showing the Italian right with double-digit leads over the left, dismissed both the idea of a transitional government and the need for electoral reforms.
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