ROME (AFP) — Italy's Prime Minister Romano Prodi, who faces almost certain defeat if the opposition-controlled Senate holds a vote of confidence in his government, will decide Thursday whether to resign instead, media reports said.
Defence Minister Arturo Parisi is among several members of Prodi's centre-left cabinet who are urging him to face the upper house vote despite his all-too-likely defeat in the wake of a small coalition partner's defection this week.
The embattled 68-year-old premier was thinking it over, Parisi said on Italian television. "What is certain is that the direction he is going is to confront the matter in public," he added.
Earlier Wednesday, media reports said President Giorgio Napolitano advised Prodi not to submit to the vote in the Senate, where the centre-left's slim majority evaporated this week with the defection of the Catholic UDEUR party.
On a day of otherwise dire news for Prodi, his team easily won a vote of confidence Wednesday evening in the lower house Chamber of Deputies, where Prodi enjoys a comfortable advantage. The motion passed by 326 to 275.
But the fate of the centre-left leader, who won 2006 elections by a handful of votes, was all but sealed as two leftist senators said they would vote against Prodi on Thursday -- if the vote goes forward.
The embattled prime minister met with Napolitano for about half an hour earlier Wednesday.
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.
Berlusconi ally Gianfranco Fini said Wednesday: "After today, it is 100 percent certain that Romano Prodi will resign and not let himself be voted down in the Senate."
Next, when Napolitano begins consultations to determine whether to call elections or form a transitional government, "we will ask for elections," added Fini, head of the right-wing National Alliance.
Political scientist Roberto D'Alimonte told AFP that Napolitano was unlikely to appoint a caretaker government "knowing that it would be against the wishes of Berlusconi, the National Alliance and (another ally) the Northern League."
Barbara Pollastrini, Prodi's minister for rights and equal opportunities, said she thought he would not reach a decision until Thursday, ANSA reported.
Two other ministers, Trade Minister Emma Bonino and Family Minister Rosy Bindi, thought Prodi should go before the Senate.
"Prodi, out of respect for institutions, should see the crisis through parliament," Bonino told Italian radio.
Most of the Italian press predicted that Prodi would lose in the Senate, while the most optimistic projection had the centre-left surviving by a single ballot.
With two more votes added to the "no" column, 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.
Three recent voter surveys show the Italian right with double-digit leads over the left.
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, a former European Commission president, 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 economics professor 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.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
