Berlusconi seeks election to end deadlock

Allies of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi pressed Italy's President yesterday to call a snap election that opinion polls say would return the conservative billionaire to power.

President Giorgio Napolitano held the third of four days of crisis talks with political leaders aimed at filling the power vacuum created when left-leaning Prime Minister Romano Prodi resigned last week after just 20 months in office.

"We asked the President of the Republic to dissolve Parliament and call early elections," said Roberto Maroni of the right-wing Northern League party, after talks with Mr Napolitano.

Gianfranco Fini, head of National Alliance, the second largest party on the centre right, said he had told Mr Napolitano it was time "to let the voters decide".

President Napolitano, an 82-year-old former communist, is known to favour revising electoral laws blamed for creating political instability before sending Italians back to the polls. He could appoint an interim government if there were cross-party agreement, an option favoured by Mr Prodi's weakened centre-left. Italian media have tipped Senate President Franco Marini as a potential head of such a government.

But Mr Berlusconi has threatened to draw millions of protesters to the streets of Rome if President Napolitano refuses to call a vote, something that one leftist leader yesterday called "disturbing, intimidation" tactics.

The centrist UDC was the only party close to Mr Berlusconi's centre right to call for an interim government to heal the country's deep divisions, saying Italy was "on its knees". But if no consensus was reached, then voters should head to the polls quickly, it said.

The deadlock is likely to force President Napolitano to call elections, which a large number of Italians appear to favour. A vote could be held as early as April.

Mr Berlusconi is due to meet President Napolitano this morning, but has already started campaigning. His platform - including tax cuts and a crackdown on crime - was splashed on the front page of Il Giornale daily, owned by his brother.

President Napolitano is expected to announce a decision today or tomorrow.

A poll published over the weekend in Corriere della Sera newspaper showed 61 per cent of Italians want an early election and only 33 per cent prefer some form of transitional government.

Polls also showed the centre left would take 42.4 to 45 per cent of the vote with Mr Berlusconi's centre right on 54.5 to 57.6 per cent.

"The winner (from the deadlock) is Silvio Berlusconi, the leader who for the last year-and-a-half has called for Parliament to be dissolved," wrote columnist Sergio Romano in yesterday's Corriere.

He said elections, while perhaps unappealing to Mr Napolitano, would at least resolve the crisis quickly.

Mr Prodi has said he is not willing to lead a new government. Walter Veltroni, Rome's popular mayor, is widely tipped as the next candidate for the centre left in an eventual election.