January 25, 2008
Italy Heads Toward Electoral Shake-Up After Prodi's Exit
Prime Minister Romano Prodi resigned from the Italian government yesterday, after losing a no-confidence vote in the Senate. He had clung to a narrow majority in the ruling body for most of his 20-month time in power, but when a small Catholic party recently left his coalition, that majority dissolved.
Former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, sensing that the time may be ripe for his opposition party to seize power, immediately called for new elections to replace Prodi. The two men have been longtime rivals, and Berlusconi's center-right party has long had Prodi in its sights.
But members of Prodi's left-leaning party, which is still in power, want to hold out for electoral reform. President Giorgio Napolitano will begin talks today to discuss the future of the government, but Agence France-Presse cites observers who say that new elections are unlikely to go forward until Italy's election laws are overhauled.
Those reforms would aim to balance the instability in Italy's political system, which cycles through leaders and parties in power quickly; Prodi's 20-month term was an unusually long time for a prime minister to hold on to the office.
The Financial Times has a timeline of Prodi's life, and Bloomberg News reports on Berlusconi's prospects in the polls.
