Italy's Prodi scrambles for support as vote looms

ROME, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Italy's Romano Prodi is scrambling for support ahead of a vote of confidence this week which he must win to stay on as prime minister.

Prodi resigned last week after suffering an embarrassing defeat over foreign policy in the upper house. Italy's president gave him a second chance yesterday by asking Prodi to remain as premier and put his majority to the test in parliament.

Prodi needs to prove he has enough support in both chambers of parliament to keep his government afloat.

While his fractious Catholics-to-communists coalition has a comfortable majority in the lower house, in the 315-seat Senate his bloc is effectively level with the opposition, forcing him to court outside senators for support.

Prodi appears to have won the backing of one extra senator, a Christian Democrat who served in Silvio Berlusconi's previous centre-right government as deputy prime minister.

Barring defections, that would raise Prodi's support to 157 elected senators, against 156 for the opposition, with one independent still up for grabs. The Senate speaker, who hails from the centre left, traditionally does not take part in votes.

Prodi is also relying on the votes of four out of seven senators-for-life, unelected elderly statesmen and prominent figures on whom he has depended heavily since taking office in May after the closest election in Italy's post-war history.

Their support failed to offset a revolt by his leftist allies in Wednesday's Senate vote.

So tight are the mathematics that the confidence vote in the upper house is not expected before Thursday to allow one of the Prodi-friendly life senators -- 97-year old Nobel medicine laureate Rita Levi-Montalcini -- to return from a trip to Dubai.

TIGHTROPE Italian newspapers reported today that Prodi had made a conciliatory phone call to one of the senators who abandoned him last week.

''That speaks volumes about the state of mind of a prime minister who is walking on a tightrope ahead of the Senate vote,'' wrote daily Corriere della Sera. If he wins in the Senate, the vote in the lower house should follow on Friday.

Commentators said Prodi is likely to pass the tests, largely thanks to the centre left's fears that a defeat would clear the way for Berlusconi -- who is calling for an early election -- to return to power.

But they say splits within his coalition, over anything from Italy's military presence in Afghanistan to pensions reform and rights for gay couples, are bound to resurface soon.

Parliament must vote new funds to keep 1,900 soldiers in Afghanistan as part of a NATO force, the issue that brought Prodi down in last week's vote, by the end of March.

REUTERS SP VC1830