Two days ago, I reported on my blog the news of the decision of current Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi to resign. Here’s the text I had written:

The Left lost at the Senate over a vote on the Italian Afghanistan mission. Now it????????s up to the President of the Republic to accept the resignation (he????????ll most probably do so) and decide whether to schedule new elections (I don????????t think he????????ll do so, as he is from a party of the current gov????????t). If elections are scheduled, they might be held in a few months. And, according to all polls, the Right would win easily. I don????????t believe the right will change things (governments in Italy are known for breaking promises), but at least Italy would be again part of the Coalition of the Willing in the War on Terror and a faithful ally of the US and Israel, instead of Hezbollah and Hamas. This, even though many Italians have strong prejudices against America and Israel and tend to be sympathetic to the Palestinians. I will keep you up-to-date.

The President of the Republic has yet to decide whether to accept Prodi’s resignation or ask him to form a new government. Today, the parties members of the ruling coalition have somehow “agreed” to a five-point deal which would allow the Left to continue staying in power. The opposition, of course, is demanding new elections to be held this coming spring.

All analysts agree that this government is unstable by nature. On the one side we have a more moderate part of the governing coalition that is on the center-left. On the other, there is the radical Left: two communist parties (one Stalinist and the other Trotskyst, but both pro-Castro/Chavez) and a Green Party. These three are joined in pressuring the coalition to strenghten even more the centralized Italian economy, keeping the old and disastrous pension system intact and, worse still, to withraw the Italian troops from Afghanistan and end the participation to the War on Terror. Prodi and the Center-Left insist Italy will stay in Afghanistan, even though “more as a civilian force than a military one” and only because “the mission has been approved by the U.N.”.

Having said that, the differences between the moderate and extreme Left are enough to make the government collapse anytime. Even if Prodi agrees to a second-term, many doubt he will be able to keep the government intact until 2011.

It’s a shared feeling that new elections might be held within a year. Currently, all polls say that, if elections were held today, the Left would loose big time.

Overall, I don’t trust the Italian political system. But I think that, for stability’s stake and for cleansing Italy’s image in the international arena, it’s better for the current government to step aside.

I will keep you up-to-date.

UPDATE: As predicted, the President of the Republic (member of one of the ruling coalition’s parties) has asked Prodi to form a new government. And Prodi accepted. So, he remains as Prime Minister. But, there is a but: now he faces a confidence vote in both the Senate and the Lower House. He has a thin majority in the latter, meaning that most likely he would get the confidence vote. The Senate, on the contrary, is decisive. Senate will determine whether he can continue to govern.

Whatever, I very much doubt his government will last until the end of the term, scheduled for 2011. Stay tuned for updates if there will be.