Italy's prime minister-elect Silvio Berlusconi formed his new centre-right government yesterday after winning last month's parliamentary election.
The media mogul held last-minute negotiations with his main allies from the National Alliance (AN), a party with fascist roots, and the vehemently anti-immigrant Northern League over how many Cabinet posts they should receive.
Mr Berlusconi, 71, will recycle ministers from his first two governments in 1994-5 and 2001-6, with Giulio Tremonti's third stint as economy minister and European Commissioner Franco Frattini back for a second spell as foreign minister.
About half a dozen names mentioned for his new Cabinet held similar jobs in the last Berlusconi government, whose main achievement was to make him the first premier in more than 50 years to last a full term.
In economic terms, it oversaw stagnation and rising public debt and economists question Mr Berlusconi's ability to deal with what the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) warned could be a sharper slowdown in coming months. But an unexpectedly strong election victory last month gave Mr Berlusconi's People of Freedom - his own Forza Italia merged with the National Alliance - a strong mandate in Parliament.
"This government will once again highlight the overarching power of Mr Berlusconi," said Franco Pavoncello, politics professor at Rome's John Cabot University.
The election produced a purge of smaller parties, with only six winning seats versus more than 20 in 2006. One casualty was Mr Berlusconi's estranged Christian Democrat allies, who gave his last government a centrist counterweight to the right.
Its absence, plus an upset AN win in Rome's town hall and the League's surprise gains, are likely to produce the most right-wing government since fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.
While Mr Berlusconi should avoid the degree of infighting that brought down Romano Prodi's coalition in January, he could be vulnerable to sniping from Northern League leader Umberto Bossi, who felled his first government after seven months.
But Mr Pavoncello said Mr Berlusconi still looked set to stamp his authority on what would be "a government of the premiership".
"At the end of the day he is still the leader and isn't going to be pushed around. It's true the League did well, but Berlusconi did so much better," the professor said.
"Clearly if we want the welfare ministry and don't get it, we have to be compensated," said the AN's Altero Matteoli, a 67-year-old former minister seen getting a powerful new post merging infrastructure, transport and environment portfolios.
The League seemed happy enough with its haul of ministries for Mr Bossi to joke after seeing Mr Napolitano: "If all the ministers were from the League, the country's problems would be solved."