THE ITALIAN left might have waited nearly 50 years to get into office but, once invited to form a government yesterday, broke all records when presenting a cabinet, list only 18 hours later.
No post election government of the post war period has been formed in a shorter time (26 days), than that of incoming Prime Minister, Prof Romano, Prodi, who along with his 20 strong cabinet will be sworn into office this morning.
Mr Prodi, the man who led the centre left Olive coalition to electoral victory last month, had, promised to waste a minimum of time in forming his government and yesterday proved as good as his word, even opting to defy the Italian superstition which considers Friday 17th an unlucky day. By comparison, two years ago the media tycoon, Mr Silvio Berlusconi, took 12 days to form his cabinet.
Such alacrity inevitably meant no surprises in the cabinet list with all the senior postings beings allocated as predicted in recent days. The outgoing Prime Minister, Mr Lamberto Dini, has been appointed Foreign Minister. The former prime minister, Mr Carlo Ciampi, has been given the new combined Treasury/Finance Ministry, the former "Tangentopoli" investigating magistrate, Judge Antonio Dil Pietro, is the new Minister for Public Works.
Along with new Justice Minister, Mr Giovanni Maria Flick, Mr Di Pietro and Mr Ciampi are the only non parliamentarian "technocrats" appointed to a cabinet which by and large reflects the composition of the winning Olive coalition which, although dominated by the ex communist Democratic Left (PDS), also included the Italian Renewal Movement of Lamberto Dini, the ex Christian Democrat Popular Party, (PPI) and the Greens.
Inevitably had its major contribution rewarded with the largest number of cabinet seats, 20, including the key appointments of Mr Giorgio Napolitano as Minister of the Interior and PDS number two, Mr Walter Vetroni, as, Deputy Prime Minister.
The appointments of the two former Bank of Italy executives," Mr Dini and Mr Ciampi, to the crucial posts of Foreign and Treasury Ministers will certainly win immediate international confidence for the new government programme in parliament next week and, following his outline speech, is expected to comfortably win his first confidence votes in both houses.