Italy's centre-left coalition leader, Romano Prodi, speaks to journalists as he leaves his office in central Rome yesterday. Prodi said his election victory was secure despite demands by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi for ballot checks. - REUTERS
WITH ONLY a two-seat majority in the Senate, a government by centre-left Romano Prodi may have to rely on seven senators appointed for life - a group that includes a Nobel Prize winner and a former seven-time premier - to ensure its survival.
The votes of these highly respected Italians could prove crucial: In the case of defections or absences by Prodi allies in parliamentary votes, they could step in and support the centre-left coalition - as is expected of at least some of them.
Prodi acknowledged as much himself yesterday.
"I didn't count life senators because it's customary not to count them," he told reporters at the foreign press club. "But they vote, and they're part of the Senate."
If the president gives Prodi the mandate to govern Italy,parliament's two houses must put his coalition to a confidence vote. In addition, Italian governments also often resort to confidence votes to ensure swift passage of basic pieces of legislation.
At least one of the life senators has said he would not take part in confidence votes, while some of the others are seen as left-leaning and might come to Prodi's rescue.
CLOSE ELECTION
"All life senators will cast their votes freely," said one of them, Giorgio Napolitano, a former member of the Communist party and ex-parliament speaker expected to support a centre-left government.
Prodi won control of both houses of parliament in one of Italy's closest ever elections, although Premier Silvio Berlusconi has refused to concede defeat and demanded checks.
Prodi insisted yesterday he has the numbers to form a government.
Still, in the Senate, the centre-left won 158 senators compared to 156 won by Berlusconi's conservatives.
One independent elected abroad has not yet indicated how he would align himself, raising the possibility that the centre-left's two-seat margin could be diminished.
Prodi also said he was certain senators elected abroad would take part in parliamentary works. Four out of six Senate seats went to the centre-left, proving decisive in the upper house win.
"They will be present," said Prodi. "It was part of the electoral agreement."
The senators for life are not elected; they are appointed by the president for their achievements _ a nomination that is one of the greatest honours in Italy.
The group includes Rita Levi Montalcini, who won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1986 and was appointed to the Senate in 2001, and Giulio Andreotti, the seven-time premier who saw his reputation tainted by accusations of aiding the Mafia. Two trials stemming from the accusations have cleared him.
"The seven of us are full-fledged senators," Andreotti was quoted as saying by Italian daily La Stampa on Wednesday.
"It's a new circumstance," he added. "In so many years I don't recall a case in which a life senator might be decisive for a government's survival."
Presidents of the republic automatically become life senators once their mandates end. Currently, there are two: Oscar Luigi Scalfaro and Francesco Cossiga.
Scalfaro, a longtime Christian Democrat, is seen as anti-Berlusconi.
Cossiga believes that no government should rely on life senators. On Wednesday, he said he would propose legislation stripping them of their right to vote in parliament.
"I am among those believing that life senators should only be state advisers," Cossiga told reporters. "I am not giving a vote of confidence to the next government."
The other two senators are Emilio Colombo, a former premier who has indicated he would support a Prodi government, according to Italian papers, and industrialist Sergio Pininfarina, who was appointed in 2005.
The mandate of the current president of the republic, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, ends in mid-May. If not re-elected president, he would also become a life senator. Ciampi is a political independent who served as economy minister under Prodi's first government in 1996. But he is seen as above the fray and highly respected by both sides.
