The Italian Prime Minister-designate, Mr Massimo D'Alema, the first ex-communist to head an Italian government, said yesterday he hoped to name his cabinet before next weekend's EU summit in Vienna.
The State President, Mr Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, gave him a mandate late on Monday to form the 56th government of the post-war era. And Mr D'Alema will have to use all his political skills to pick his centre-left coalition team and, more importantly, hold it together.
In the short term, he will have to play off the cabinet pretensions of the outgoing Olive coalition against those of two minority parties, the Union of Democrats for the Republic and the Party of Communists for Italy (neo-PCI).
In the long term, Mr D'Alema will have to work hard to maintain a coalition which stretches across an even broader ideological canvas than that of his predecessor, Mr Romano Prodi. It spans from the ex-Christian Democrat UDR in the centre to the ex-Stalinist Italian communists on the left.
In essence, Mr D'Alema has regrouped the Olive coalition forces and added on the 30 votes guaranteed by UDR, led by quixotic former state president Mr Francesco Cossiga.
In cabinet terms, this means Mr D'Alema will reconfirm key appointments such as Treasury Minister Mr Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and Foreign Minister Mr Lamberto Dini. Both inspire confidence among Italy's senior European partners.
But whereas the Prodi government relied on the Lower House votes of Rifondazione Communista but did not include the party in the cabinet (by mutual consent), Mr D'Alema will offer senior posts to UDR and communist figures.
He may hope this will remove the temptation to replicate the Rifondazione withdrawal which brought down the Prodi government 12 days ago, in a confidence vote related to a deficit-cutting 1999 budget. In this, Mr D'Alema may be demonstrating his sense of realpolitik.
But his decision to broaden his majority to form a centre-left coalition has inevitably drawn criticism from the centre-right opposition leader and media magnate, Mr Silvio Berlusconi. Less expected was Mr Prodi's criticism.
While Mr Berlusconi complains the electorate was "robbed", Mr Prodi says Mr D'Alema's methods represent "a halt in Italy's efforts to achieve a bi-polar system of government based on ideals and competition between different policies".
Mr Prodi's objections are probably based on his refusal to rule with any coalition other than that with which he won the 1996 general election. In contrast, Mr D'Alema has assembled a platform for which no one has voted. The arrival in the prime minister's office of Italy's first communist via a cabinet reshuffle prompts interesting reflections.
How many Italians would have voted for the centre-left in 1996 had it been led by Mr D'Alema and included Mr Cossiga's UDR (a party formed only in February this year)? Wouldn't Mr D'Alema's presence have scared off those Catholic moderates attracted to the ex-Christian Democrat and liberal Catholic Mr Prodi? Wouldn't the presence of Mr Cossiga have scared off those ex-communists who voted for the Olive coalition?
The old-style, behind-doors methods by which Mr D'Alema has created this government may have prevented a general election that no one, apart from Mr Berlusconi, really wants.