Italian political dream is "nightmare" for expats

ROME, Feb 24 (Reuters) For Renato Turano, a Chicago bakery executive, becoming an Italian senator nine months ago was a dream.

An odd, unlikely dream -- that came true.

But after watching Prime Minister Romano Prodi's shock resignation this week after a failed vote, Turano has some withering words to say about pressure-cooker Italian politics.

''Over here, it's like a nightmare where every single vote becomes a problem,'' Turano, who voted to back the government's foreign policy, told Reuters in a telephone interview from his office in Rome.

''In the United States, we're not used to this type of situation ... we know that whoever is elected will rule for four years or whatever the term will be.'' Turano, who was born in Italy in 1942 and who moved to Chicago in his teens, is part of a first, experimental crop of four senators who represent Italians abroad.

His job, which is now in jeopardy, is to speak for fellow Italian expatriates who live in his North American ''district''.

He considers this an honour.

But Turano's vote was much more important than even he could have imagined, since his centre-left ruling coalition was elected with a one-seat majority in the Senate. That meant Turano couldn't miss a single vote, or the 64-year-old Chicagoan alone risked bringing down the Italian government.

That made it hard for him to travel home to the Chicago area to see his wife, three children and nine grandchildren, living an ocean away.

''I basically come home (to the United States) for the weekends occasionally, just to make sure that I see my family and return again,'' he said.

NOT ''ANTI-AMERICAN'' Ultimately, it was not Turano but two communists that brought down Prodi by refusing to endorse his foreign policy in the Senate vote.

They objected to the expansion of a US military base in Italy and keeping troops in Afghanistan, which they say is not peacekeeping but part of the US war on terrorism.

Turano denied the leftists were anti-American. ''They are not against the Americans. They're against war,'' he said.

Asked whether he thought the experience of being an Italian senator was, on the whole, a positive one or not, he said: ''I think that the experience has been absolutely fabulous. I enjoy it very much.

''I really get an appreciation, or an added appreciation, for the way that we do things in the United States.'' REUTERS SSC VC0930