ITALY: Italian centre-left leader Romano Prodi, narrow winner of this week's general election, yesterday adamantly asserted his right to lead Italy's next government.
Speaking to the foreign press in Rome, Mr Prodi said his Union coalition had won the election fair and square, adding that he was totally unworried about the outcome of the ongoing recount of 43,000 disputed votes.
The recount had been called for by prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has refused to concede defeat until the recount is finished, probably this weekend.
Commenting on an election result which has left his coalition with a slim majority in the Senate, Mr Prodi said: "We have a strong majority in the Lower House, we have a narrow majority in the Upper House but, in both cases, we have the possibility of governing for five years.
"There is nothing unusual about a narrow election win, the problem is having control of parliament. Our winning margin is some way larger than that of President Bush in 2000 or of Gerhard Schröder in 2002."
Asked if he was concerned his electoral victory could be overturned by the recount, he said: "I have no worries at all that the result could be reversed.
"You have to admit this is a curious situation because Prime Minister Berlusconi is protesting yet he had total control of everything, the ministry of the interior, the transmission of the results, everything, everything. And yet he doesn't trust the result . . . He's going through some sort of identity crisis."
Mr Prodi, who met with President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi yesterday morning, went on to confirm that he would not be able to take office for four to five weeks.
President Ciampi's mandate expires next month, meaning the new parliament's first duty will be to elect a new president who, only then, will be able to nominate Mr Prodi as prime minister.
President Ciampi has already stated he believes it to be constitutionally more correct for his successor, rather than himself, to nominate the next prime minister.
Prime minister-elect Prodi confirmed that he had received congratulatory telephone calls from various world leaders, including French president Jacque Chirac and Spanish prime minister José Luis Zapatero.
Asked how he intended to hold together his wide-ranging centre-left coalition and how, in particular, he would persuade hard-line leftists Rifondazione Comunista to accept tough economic and fiscal reforms, Mr Prodi said: "We presented a detailed government programme, 281-pages long, to which everyone has signed up. I think you're underestimating the sense of responsibility of [Rifondazione leader] Bertinotti and of the whole coalition."
Clearly in a relaxed, post-electoral mood, the former European Commission president even allowed himself a couple of gentle jibes at his defeated opponent, Mr Berlusconi.
When asked how he would set about restoring "Italy's lost credibility" on the international stage, Mr Prodi made an obvious reference to Mr Berlusconi's infamous gaffes, saying: "Good manners, for a start, that would be a step forward."
More seriously, Mr Prodi confirmed his government intends to tackle the "conflict of interests" problem presented by Mr Berlusconi's dual roles of politician and Italy's wealthiest entrepreneur.
Having complained about the unprecedented "media bombardment" waged by Mr Berlusconi (owner of three commercial TV channels) during the electoral campaign, Mr Prodi said: "This [conflict of interests] is a problem that has to be confronted by every democracy. We'll do it with serenity ."
On Iraq, Mr Prodi repeated his campaign commitment to withdraw the 3,000-strong Italian troop contingent currently based there.
He added, however: "We will do it in a way that does not harm or cause problems for Iraqis and we'll do it in consultation with the Iraqi government."
Earlier yesterday, there had been a brief flurry when five ballot boxes, complete with valid votes, were found abandoned close to a rubbish bin near a polling station in Rome.
Police investigators subsequently confirmed, however, that the votes had been counted and registered, with the five boxes finding their way onto the footpath through an "oversight".
Peter Eicher, head of the OSCE observation team monitoring the election, confirmed yesterday that there were large numbers of invalid votes.
But he also added that he had misgivings about lopsided media coverage of the election and about the Berlusconi government's last-minute enactment of a new electoral law which saw the country return to a proportional representational system last weekend.