ITALY:It now seems certain that Italy faces an early general election, most likely on the weekend of April 13th-14th.
Italian president Giorgio Napolitano is expected to announce the dissolution of parliament this morning following a meeting with outgoing prime minister Romano Prodi, whose centre-left coalition government fell two weeks ago.
Given his reluctance to call a snap election, Mr Napolitano gave himself an extra day yesterday in which to satisfy himself that there was no other solution to Italy's current crisis. By last night, however, when the speakers of both houses of parliament were summoned to the presidential palace, it was clear that there would be no surprise developments. The formal summoning of both speakers is usually the preamble to dissolution of parliament.
In reality, an early election has been on the cards from the moment Mr Prodi's government fell in the Senate two weeks ago. Mr Napolitano had initially attempted to find another solution to the crisis by asking Senate speaker Franco Marini to explore the possibility of forming a cross-party interim government that would have had a mandate to enact electoral reform prior to the holding of a general election.
Mr Marini's attempts to find agreement on such a government fell foul of centre-right leader Silvio Berlusconi, who has consistently called for an early election since the collapse of the Prodi government. After Mr Marini's admission on Monday that he had failed to find a consensus on forming a short-term government, an early election looked inevitable.
Many observers across the political divide believe that the current electoral legislation, introduced in 2005 by the Berlusconi government, is deeply flawed and at least partly responsible for the instability that marked Mr Prodi's 20 months in office.
Mr Berlusconi has downplayed such talk during the past two weeks, arguing that the legislation can still produce a stable majority.
In reality, Mr Berlusconi almost certainly believes that his seemingly united coalition will not only win an emphatic victory but do so with a workable parliamentary majority. Yesterday, the centre-right leader suggested that he had a 10-16 point lead over the centre-left, due to be led by Walter Veltroni, the mayor of Rome.
For his part, Mr Veltroni faces a difficult campaign, given his wish that his newly formed Democratic Party will run on its own ticket. That decision was based at least partly on the constant bickering between Catholic and communist allies that undermined Mr Prodi's government.
Sounding very much as if he was already on the campaign trail, Mr Veltroni yesterday argued that he could still make up the lost ground on Mr Berlusconi, taking heart from the campaign being waged in the US by Democratic candidate Barack Obama: "I don't believe the doomsayers nor opinion polls. Look at Obama - three months ago nobody would have bet on him."
However, all the signs are that Mr Veltroni, despite his wish to run alone, will end up making some form of electoral pact with other leftist forces. Socialist Bobo Craxi and Green leader Angelo Bonelli were just two former centre-left coalition members who yesterday called on him to rethink his position.