One year on, Prodi faces test in Italy local polls

ROME, May 27 (Reuters) One year after taking office, Italy's Prime Minister Romano Prodi faces his first major electoral test today against a backdrop of falling popularity ratings and disenchantment with his government.

More than 10 million voters go to the polls, with seven provinces electing their governors and 862 towns their mayors -- including big cities like Genoa, Verona and Reggio Calabria -- in the two-day ballot which ends tomorrow.

The vote comes as opinion surveys show Italians have little faith in their elected officials in general, and Prodi's fractious centre-left government in particular. A recent poll in left-leaning La Repubblica put its popularity at 40 per cent.

Such is the discontent that some commentators have drawn comparisons with the sour popular mood that underpinned the investigation into the ''Tangentopoli'' bribery scandal that rocked the country's political elite 15 years ago.

Prodi has sought to down play the importance of the local polls, saying they have no bearing on the national scene, but political observers disagree.

''Given the sheer number of voters and the diversity of the areas concerned, this test will inevitably also have a national relevance and be a judgment of the government's track record,'' La Stampa daily said in an editorial.

BITTER ANNIVERSARY Dogged from the outset by a flimsy parliamentary majority which has laid bare the deep splits in his Catholic-to-communist coalition and nearly cost him his job in February, Prodi had little time to celebrate his first year in power this week.

Passengers have been stranded by a strike at loss-making national airline Alitalia, state workers have threatened protests over pension reforms, and tonnes of garbage have piled up in the streets of Naples due to a waste disposal crisis.

Prodi's hopes of getting some credit for cutting the budget deficit and spurring growth were dashed by the chief of powerful employers' lobby Confindustria, who told a meeting that business -- not the government -- was behind the fragile economic upturn.

A stony-faced Prodi sat in the audience.

Meanwhile, several ministers have spent the run-up to the polls locked up in a conference to try to overcome their differences on a gay rights draft law opposed by the Vatican.

Centre-right opposition leader Silvio Berlusconi, seeking revenge after he narrowly lost in last year's general election, has raised the stakes ahead of the ballot, saying the government should step down in case of defeat.

''If we win this vote we'll go to the president and ask with determination for new general elections,'' Berlusconi, who unlike Prodi has been out campaigning all week, told a rally in Genoa.

Whatever the result, the local polls are unlikely to have immediate consequences for the government, but Berlusconi is hoping a drubbing would erode Prodi's mandate and make it harder for him to serve out a full five-year term.

Polls close tomorrow at 1830 hrs ist with the first projections expected shortly afterwards.

REUTERS SG RK1615