Italy's new centre-left coalition government, led by Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema, passed a crucial confidence vote in the Lower House last night by 31O to 287 votes, ending the shortest government crisis of the post-war era.
Mr D'Alema resigned last Saturday, 14 months after taking office, after minority members of his coalition - including the Socialist, Republican and Trifoglio parties - withdrew their support.
Mr D'Alema's new government was able to survive confidence motions in both the Senate on Wednesday and in the Lower House last night thanks to the decision of most of the dissident centre-left supporters to abstain rather than vote against.
The Prime Minister and his new cabinet were sworn in on Wednesday, just four days after the resignation.
Missing from the reshuffled government lineup were Socialists, Republicans, and the Trifoglio party led by ex-state president Mr Francesco Cossiga.
It had been the support of Mr Cossiga's newly-founded Union of Democrats for the Republic (UDR), which enabled Mr D'Alema to take office in October 1998, after Mr Romano Prodi's (now European Commission President) two-and-a-half year old government had been brought down.
Significant inclusions in the new line-up were three Democrats: Mr Enzo Bianco (Interior), Mr Willer Bordon (Public Works) and Mr Antonio Maccanico (Institutional Reform).