Minister: Italy's Berlusconi to Resign

yahoo! news ^ | 18th april 2005 | an italian

[an italian]

By ALESSANDRA RIZZO, Associated Press Writer

ROME - Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi will resign and form a new government to strengthen his struggling conservative coalition, a top official said Monday, ending Italy's longest-serving postwar government.

Berlusconi's Cabinet has been in power four years, a rare achievement in a country with a history of unstable politics, but he has been under pressure to resign since the coalition suffered a crushing defeat in a regional vote earlier this month.

Last week, a small centrist party headed by Deputy Premier Marco Follini pulled its ministers out of the Cabinet and demanded that Berlusconi form a fresh government with a new platform.

Follini on Monday renewed his commitment to a new Berlusconi government, and Berlusconi made the "ensuing decision to hand in his resignation to the head of state," Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini said after an emergency meeting of coalition leaders.

Formally, Berlusconi now has to visit President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and tender his resignation.

Resigning and immediately forming a new government is a tactic that has been used often by former Italian premiers to strengthen faltering coalitions. Berlusconi had resisted the move, dismissing it as a remnant of Italy's messy political past.

But once the premier hands in a resignation, it is up to the president to decide whether to ask Berlusconi — or another candidate — to form a new government or to dissolve parliament and call early elections.

Berlusconi's coalition took power in 2001, and the premier hoped the government would become the first in postwar Italy to serve a full five-year term.

After the center-right's collapse in the April 3-4 regional vote, Berlusconi had proposed a Cabinet reshuffle and a revised program to relaunch the coalition ahead of the general vote next year. The proposal has been rejected by Follini's party, the Union of Christian Democrats.

[Cicero]

Back to instability? Since the end of the Second World War, Italy has pretty well managed to do without a functioning central government most of the time. There have only been a few periods where the national government has had enough power to accomplish anything. As a result, life in Italy has pretty much been in the hands of the cities, the entrepreneurs, and other interest groups and influential individuals.

[Willie Green]

It is oddly coincidental that this is taking place simultaneous to the papal election.

Totally unrelated, I'm sure.
But tinfoil speculation is sometimes entertaining.