Italian parliament opens, Prodi faces tough test

ROME, Apr 28 (Reuters) Italy's upper house of parliament began voting today for a new speaker in the first test of authority for prime-minister-in-waiting Romano Prodi.

Prodi's centre-left coalition has just a two-seat advantage in the upper house Senate and is battling to get former union leader Franco Marini elected to the prestigious speaker's post.

He is facing off against 87-year-old elder statesman Giulio Andreotti, who is being promoted by outgoing prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has yet to concede defeat in the April 9, 10 election which Prodi won by just 24,000 votes.

Political analysts say if Marini fails to win the vote it will signal that Prodi's tiny majority was not enough to guarantee political peace and might be a precursor to chronic instability that would open the way for new elections.

But newspapers say if his coalition wins the vote easily, President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi might appoint Prodi prime minister within days rather than weeks, as previously expected.

Berlusconi has thrown his weight behind the hunched, aged Andreotti hoping that a handful of centre-left admirers might also back him.

The centre-left coalition has a 158-156 majority over the centre-right in the Senate, but there are seven life senators and an independent -- who can vote as they please and could swing the result Andreotti's way.

Prodi spent time and energy this week ahead of the first session of parliament on Friday trying to persuade the floaters to back Marini. Early indications suggested that the 73-year-old should just scrape through in the secret vote.

''Let's say that there are the conditions to succeed,'' Marini told reporters as he arrived at the Senate today.

The results of the vote were expected later today.

The centre-left enjoys almost a 70-seat majority in the lower house, thanks to a new electoral system which provided the general election victor with an automatic winners' bonus.

Thanks to this, the centre-left candidate for speaker in that chamber, veteran communist Fausto Bertinotti, should be elected with ease.

Italian newspapers reported that if Marini and Bertinotti won through, Berlusconi would go to Ciampi this weekend to hand in his resignation.

Under the terms of the constitution, the president has to appoint a new prime minister, but the situation is complicated this year because Ciampi's mandate expires in May and he wants his successor to do the honours.

However, concerns over a prolonged power vacuum might persuade him to do the job himself in the coming days.

Many parliamentarians want the 85-year-old Ciampi to be given a second mandate. The fact that both he and seven-times prime minister Andreotti are viewed as serious candidates for Italy's top two institutional jobs show the power that the older generation wields in this rapidly ageing country.

REUTERS CH BST1631