Italy’s Premier Grudgingly Resigns

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi resigned Tuesday, formally and begrudgingly accepting defeat in last month’s national elections and vowing to undermine the government chosen to succeed his own.

“We will be missed,” Berlusconi was quoted as telling his Cabinet in its final meeting. “We will be remembered as the best government in the history of the republic.”

Then Berlusconi performed the ritual that he had stubbornly refused to do for three weeks: He walked down a red carpet into the Quirinale Palace and handed his letter of resignation to Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.

The formality cleared the way for center-left leader Romano Prodi to put together a government. Prodi and his fragile coalition won the April 9-10 vote by the thinnest of margins over Berlusconi’s conservative alliance, but could not begin to take office until Berlusconi stepped down.

Victory by a thread, however, spells trouble for the Prodi administration, and the difficulties were on display over the weekend. It took two days for Prodi and his supporters to muster the votes needed to elect their own people to lead the two houses of Parliament.

Berlusconi savored the momentary chaos and promised to attempt to exploit the weaknesses he sees in Prodi’s government: its narrow majority in Parliament and the prickly philosophical differences within the center-left coalition, a collection ranging from former Christian Democrats to Communists.

“Prodi won’t last long,” Berlusconi said.

Prodi, an economics professor and former president of the European Commission, has gamely tried to deflect Berlusconi’s defiance and gone about acting like a newly elected head of government.

On Tuesday, once Berlusconi finally resigned, Prodi, 66, sounded relieved. “Sometimes democracy moves a little slowly, but it moves,” he said.

Prodi indicated that he could present a full slate of Cabinet ministers by week’s end.

The resignation of Berlusconi, 69, ends his five-year term as prime minister, the longest in post-World War II Italy.

A self-made billionaire whom even friends call an egomaniac, Berlusconi radically transformed Italian politics, elevating flashy style over substance and shocking critics (while delighting fans) with blunt talk and tasteless jokes. He bought or took control of most media and cowed his opponents.

Berlusconi failed to make good on campaign promises to spread prosperity for all Italians, and many of his foreign policy decisions, such as supporting the U.S.-led war in Iraq, were unpopular. He had laws rewritten to suit his interests and, critics charge, help him skirt prosecution for questionable business dealings. Nevertheless, he commanded a loyal following to the end and is credited with giving Italian governance a stability not seen in more than a generation.

Italy now may be returning to the bad old days of political instability and revolving-door governments, analysts say, given the factionalism in Prodi’s embryonic government and the fierce determination of a Berlusconi-led opposition.

“Italy today is profoundly divided, split in half like an apple,” said Pier Ferdinando Casini, outgoing speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Parliament.

The April election culminated a nasty campaign and left both political camps badly bruised. Berlusconi was so angry at having lost, and so in denial, that he refused to make the customary concession telephone call to Prodi. He still has not done so, as far as can be determined. But the two men did shake hands Tuesday, for the first time since the election, during the somber state funeral for three Italian soldiers slain in Iraq.

Prodi insists that he will disprove the naysayers and hold his government together. One move to that end was to nominate Fausto Bertinotti, head of the Communist Refoundation Party, as speaker in the Chamber of Deputies. The Communists bolted from Prodi’s earlier government in 1998 and caused it to fall. In theory, having Bertinotti in such a senior position commands certain allegiance.

Technically, Berlusconi now serves as a caretaker prime minister until Prodi forms his government. That cannot happen until the president formally asks Prodi to do so.

Ciampi, whose seven-year term ends May 18, has said he would prefer to let his successor do the honors. But Ciampi is coming under increasing pressure to call the new government, lest Italy be left rudderless. In addition, there is a movement afoot to recruit Ciampi to another term.

Ciampi, 85, who became a great-grandfather on Tuesday, has not commented publicly on whether he would be willing to remain in office.