Prime Minister-in-waiting struggling to contain a row

ROME, Apr 21: Just two days after his election victory was confirmed, prime minister-in-waiting Romano Prodi was already struggling to contain a row within his centre-left coalition that augured ill for his future government.

Opponents always said Prodi would be unable to hold together his broad alliance, which spans diehard communists to Roman Catholic moderates, but no-one expected the cracks to emerge even before Prodi had formally taken office.

The fight centres on who should be appointed speakers of the upper and lower houses of parliament. These two posts are highly prestigious and Prodi's three main coalition partners are all pressing hard for their own candidates to be elevated.

The major tussle is over the lower house, with two political heavyweights -- Communist Refoundation head Fausto Bertinotti and the chairman of the Democrats of the Left (DS), Massimo D'Alema -- demanding the job.

La Stampa newspaper quoted Bertinotti as saying he might withdraw from Prodi's so-called Union alliance if he doesn't get the nod while the DS has indicated that as the largest party within the centre-left coalition, it deserves the job.

''I am very embittered and very astonished,'' D'Alema, a former prime minister, was quoted as saying in left-leaning la Repubblica newspaper. ''We are giving our coalition a terrible image and the choice of Bertinotti is divisive,'' he added.

Prodi told reporters today he was working to resolve the dispute, saying all sides had promised to accept his decision.

''It is not going to be a difficult decision, even if it is obviously going to be a painful one,'' said Prodi, whose previous term as Italian prime minister ended after just two years in 1998 when Bertinotti turned against him.

SPECTACLE The new parliament convenes on April 28 and will almost immediately set to work on choosing the two speakers. Whoever is put forward by Prodi will almost certainly be elected.

Italian newspapers were unanimous in agreeing that the public squabble over the trophy jobs was a public relations disaster that raised questions over how Prodi will manage to bridge the divides when he gets down to tackling policy issues.

''Leaving aside the possible outcome, which still hangs in the balance, this is an emblematic mess,'' Corriere della Sera newspaper wrote today.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has yet to concede defeat in the April 9, 10 election despite a ruling on Wednesday by the supreme court which adjudged Prodi victor by some 24,755 votes -- the smallest winning margin in modern Italian history.

However, even Berlusconi's closest foreign ally, the United States, has now recognised Prodi's win and political sources said the centre-right leader was plotting a fierce opposition, especially in the Senate where the left has a two-seat majority.

Prodi has tried to shrug off concerns over his coalition's stability and is busy drawing up his cabinet list, with Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, a former European Central Bank board member and non-politician, in pole position to become economy minister.

''It is certainly a serious and considered possibility,'' Prodi said, referring to Padao-Schioppa, adding that no final decision had been taken.

The former European Commission president is not expected to take power until the end of May, thanks to a constitutional log jam caused by the fact that President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi's mandate expires in mid-May.

Under the Italian constitution, the president nominates a new premier and Ciampi wants his successor to do that job.

Reuters