The Wall Street Journal-20080128-Politics - Economics- Berlusconi Fills Political Void In Italy as He Vies for Power

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Politics & Economics: Berlusconi Fills Political Void In Italy as He Vies for Power

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ROME -- Though the date for Italy's next elections has yet to be set, conservative opposition leader Silvio Berlusconi is already in full campaign mode, betting that it will only be a matter of months before he is swept back into power.

Mr. Berlusconi, who was elected Italy's prime minister in 1994 and again in 2001, has rushed to fill the political vacuum created when Prime Minister Romano Prodi lost a Senate confidence vote Thursday, toppling his 20-month old government. Mr. Berlusconi has tried to pilot the ensuing political crisis by demanding immediate elections, possibly as early as April.

Friday, he was already holding his first impromptu rally, in Naples, announcing a possible legislative program and poking fun at his adversaries. "This campaign is going to be a walk in the park," he told a crowd of enthusiastic supporters. "It's already begun; today is the first day."

First, however, Mr. Berlusconi must sway President Giorgio Napolitano to call for elections. The president acts as a sort of nonpartisan referee in the country's politics and has the power to dissolve Parliament and call national elections.

Mr. Napolitano has been insisting that political factions first agree to form an interim government that can draft a new electoral law. The current law, rushed through in 2005 during the final months of Mr. Berlusconi's administration, is widely considered a disaster because it allows even minuscule parties to gain representation in Parliament. That hastened the demise of Mr. Prodi's government, which depended on a coalition of nine parties.

Mr. Napolitano started consultations Friday with politicians from both sides. So far, he has been blocked by Mr. Berlusconi, who has forbidden any of his allies to agree to anything other than snap elections.

Mr. Napolitano plans to continue to sound out party leaders until tomorrow. At that time, he is expected to decide if he can get enough support in Parliament for a transitional government that could draft a new voting law. If not, he will likely have to cede to Mr. Berlusconi's demand and call elections.

That would set up a contest between Mr. Berlusconi, who would be making his fifth run for the prime minister's office, and Rome's Mayor Walter Veltroni, who takes over leadership of the center left from Mr. Prodi.

Mr. Berlusconi, 71 years old, is wagering that the sooner he can get Italians to the polls the better his chances are. And he has been itching for another electoral fight since he narrowly lost to Mr. Prodi in April 2006. He tried to delegitimize Mr. Prodi from the start, refusing to concede defeat, and he taunted the prime minister for months with predictions that his government was about to crack.

A poll published yesterday in the daily Corriere della Sera gave Mr. Berlusconi's center-right coalition a 10% advantage over the center left.

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Luca Di Leo contributed to this article.