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Italian President Giorgio Napolitano yesterday turned down Romano Prodi's offer to resign as prime minister and asked him to face a confidence vote in parliament.

 

President Napolitano announced his decision after two days of talks with parliamentary speakers, party leaders, whips and former heads of state to decide how to resolve the crisis.

 

After meeting with Prodi at the presidential palace yesterday, Napolitano said most party leaders agreed that holding early elections is pointless and there is no alternative to sending Prodi's government back to parliament for a vote of confidence.

 

He said that the confidence vote would be held "very quickly" to "immediately restabilize normal government and parliamentary activity."

 

"My concern and hope is that the country can be governed in a stable and credible way, with constructive relations between the majority and the opposition," the president added.

 

Napolitano admitted that the crisis had been "particularly complex and difficult" but stressed that fresh elections were not required.

 

Prodi told reporters after his meeting with Napolitano that "I will present myself in parliament for the confidence vote as soon as possible with the renewed impetus of a coalition which is united and determined to help the country in this difficult stage and boost its economic recovery."

 

He also thanked the president's support for him and the center-left coalition.

 

Reacting to Napolitano's decision, conservative opposition leader and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said that the agony will continue and the center-left coalition will never be able to find consensus to carry out the reforms the country needs.

 

Prodi lost a vote on foreign policy in the Senate, including the government's plan to keep troops in Afghanistan. Some left-wing members of the current government oppose Italy's presence in Afghanistan.

 

Another issue dividing the center-left coalition is the planned expansion of a U.S. base in the northern Italian town of Vicenza, where more than 80,000 people demonstrated last Saturday in a protest backed by the Refoundation Communists.

 

Local media reported that the president was willing to give Prodi another chance to consolidate his grip on power but had warned him that he would call elections if the government is defeated again in the Senate.

 

Prodi's administration enjoys a comfortable majority in the lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, but a wafer-thin majority in the Senate.

 

Coalition leaders said that now they have had enough support to make Prodi win make-or-break votes in both houses of parliament.

 

On Saturday, one opposition senator Marco Follini said that he had decided to back the government.

 

Prodi could also obtain the support of at least four lifetime Senators, including former presidents Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and Oscar Luigi Scalfaro.

 

The vote of confidence in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate is expected to be held some time next week on two separate days. Should Prodi lose the vote, he would be constitutionally obliged to step down.

 

(Xinhua News Agency February 25, 2007)