Strengthened by the election of his candidate as Italy's new president, incoming premier Romano Prodi on Thursday continued the tricky task of putting together his cabinet.
The centre-left leader, who won the narrowest of victories against outgoing premier Silvio Berlusconi at the polls a month ago, will probably be appointed by new head of state Giorgio Napolitano next Tuesday or Wednesday. Prodi says he will be ready by then to present the president, an 80-year-old ex-Communist whose first job will be to name the new premier, with his list of cabinet members.
Journalists pressed Prodi for details on Thursday but the former European Commission chief remained tight-lipped.
"We are working. It's pointless me saying anything else at this stage... not until the president takes office (on Monday) and gives me a mandate to govern," he said. Napolitano was elected by members of the Senate and House and regional representatives on Wednesday morning but on the votes of the centre left alone.
It was a key victory for Prodi. Not only did it mean he could finally take office but it also showed his unwieldy and potentially fractious nine-party coalition could pull together when needed.
The coalition ranges from Communists and anti-clericalists to staunch Catholics, making unity as difficult as it is crucial given Prodi's slim majority. Under a controversial electoral reform law, forced through by the centre right just before the election and returning Italy to proportional representation, Prodi has a relatively solid hold over the House even though he won there
by just 25,000 votes. But in the Senate, where he lost the popular vote, Prodi has just two more seats than Berlusconi's alliance, which has vowed to challenge his government at every possible turn.
The job of forming a coalition government, difficult at the best of times, is even tougher for Prodi with nine essential allies vying for posts and visibility and all demanding to be contented. Prodi stressed on Wednesday that he was anxious to have former premier and Democratic Left (DS) chairman Massimo D'Alema on board.
D'Alema, whose party is the largest in Prodi's coalition, has already been forced to step aside twice - once in favour of Communist Refoundation Party (PRC) chief Fausto Bertinotti for the job of House Speaker and again in favour of Napolitano for the post of president.
Prodi said D'Alema's inclusion would help make his government "politically strong" and the press has speculated that the 57-year-old former Communist will be made foreign minister as well as deputy premier.
The DS is expected to receive five or six ministries in all, with heavyweights Luciano Violante, a former House speaker, slated to take over the reform portfolio and Pierluigi Bersani to return to his former industry spot. Prodi has also said he is keen to include Giuliano Amato, a 68-year-old former Socialist who served as premier from 1992-93 and again from 2000-2001 after D'Alema abruptly resigned following a local election defeat.
Newspapers speculated that Amato, who was treasury chief in D'Alema's government, would be offered the weighty position of interior minister or justice minister. The important post of economy minister is tipped to go to former European Central Bank board member Tommaso Padoa Schioppa, who met with Prodi on Thurday afternoon.
Most experts agree that Padoa Schioppa, who is not a party affiliate, is an ideal choice to boost confidence inItaly's ability to fix its deteriorating finances and help boost its stagnant economy.
Over the past five years, GDP growth in Italy has averaged less than 0.7% a year while the country's debt mountain - the third biggest in the world - is on the rise again and has been forecast by the European Commission to hit 107.4% of GDP this year.
Meanwhile, the centrist, Catholic-oriented Daisy party - the second biggest party after the DS - is also angling for five or six ministries in the new government. According to the media, Daisy leader and former Rome mayor Francesco Rutelli, who was defeated by Berlusconi in the 2001 election, is likely to be offered the culture ministry and the job of deputy premier along with D'Alema.
Former health minister and Daisy bigwig Rosy Bindi is seen as taking on the education portfolio.
Prodi is expected to have a harder task in appeasing his smaller allies, with the media already predicting a battle between centrist, Catholic UDEUR chief Clemente Mastella and top Radical Emma Bonino for the post of defence minister. There was already an exchange of crossfire earlier this month when Bonino, a former European commissioner for human rights, said she was better qualified for the job than Mastella, who was still bristling at being passed over for the Senate speakership.
Meanwhile, the PRC's new chief Franco Giordano, who has taken over from Bertinotti, emerged from talks with Prodi on Thursday to say that things were "looking good" for his hard-left party in the new cabinet.
The PRC, which brought down Prodi's first, 1996-98 government, holds positions that conflict with other coalition parties on several issues including economic and labour market reform and foreign policy. But Prodi is hoping his allies' undersigning of the
alliance's 280-page election programme will limit infighting and has promised a strong leadership legitimised by his landslide victory in unprecedented primary-style elections last October.
