Related: Italian Prime Minister
resigns over Afghan mission
ROME, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Italian center-left Prime
Minister Romano Prodi won the confidence vote in Senate on Wednesday evening.
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Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi
speaks to reporters after consulting with Italian President Giorgio
Napolitano at the Quirinale palace in Rome Feb. 24, 2007.(Xinhua/Reuters,
File Photo)
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The
premier won the vote with 162 votes, two more than the majority needed, with 157
voting against him.
"I'm very pleased," Prodi said afterwards, stressing
that his coalition had "proved its self-sufficiency."
Prodi quit last Wednesday after losing a vote on
foreign policyin the Senate, where his nine-month-old government hangs by a
thread.
President Giorgio Napolitano rejected Prodi's
resignation at the weekend but asked him to test his majority in parliament.
Another confidence vote will now be held in the House
on Friday,the local media reported.
That vote poses no problem for the premier, who
enjoys a solid majority in the lower chamber.
Prodi, who won the narrowest of victories against
center-right chief Silvio Berlusconi in last April's general election, holds
only one more seat than the opposition in the Senate.
But the premier was able to count on extra support
from top opposition moderate Senator Marco Follini, who switched sides last
week, and four of the upper chamber's seven life senators.
Two other life senators did not take part in the
vote, which lowered the quorum needed for Prodi to survive the test to 160.
The seventh life senator, former president Francesco
Cossiga, voted against Prodi.
The opposition was certain to contest Prodi's
reliance on the life senators' help in the ballot.
Dubbed the "magnificent seven," the life senators
hold the balance of power and have come to the government's rescue several times
in the past.
Prodi's precarious grip on power and the constant
squabbling in his nine-party coalition led the opposition to brand the former
European Commission chief a "dead man walking."
Italian political analysts agreed that Prodi remained
weak and at the mercy of his own senators, particularly over foreign policy.
Another divisive issue is that of granting certain
rights to cohabiting heterosexual and same-sex couples with a bill dubbed
DICO.
Related:
Italian gov't to face confidence votes
in Parliaments
ROME, Feb. 27 (Xinhua) -- Italian Prime Minister
Romano Prodi is expected to survive the votes of confidence in Parliaments, even
though the one in the Senate will be a knife-edge affair, local media reported
Tuesday.
Prodi, who briefly resigned last week after his
government lost a Senate ballot on foreign policy, will face a confidence vote
on Wednesday evening in Senate.
Prodi to face confidence vote in
Senate Wednesday
ROME, Feb. 26 (Xinhua) -- Romano Prodi, who briefly
resigned as premier last week, will face a confidence vote in the Senate on
Wednesday evening, senate officials said Monday.
The vote would be preceded by a speech from the
center-left premier, scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, local media reported.
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