Italy's business lobby has urged squabbling politicians to form a coalition government or risk condemning the country to prolonged economic recession.
The depth of the chaos was highlighted on Saturday when Giorgio Napolitano, the 87-year-old outgoing president, reluctantly accepted a second mandate as head of state.
Mr Napolitano’s term was due to expire next month and five rounds of voting in a highly fragmented parliament failed to produce a majority to elect his successor. The centre-left Democratic party’s entire leadership resigned at the weekend after an internal revolt scuppered the election bid of former prime minister Romano Prodi. Mr Napolitano, a widely respected former communist, will lay out his plans following his inauguration on Monday. His re-election by parliament was supported by the Democrats together with Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right and a small centrist group led by caretaker prime minister Mario Monti.
Mr Napolitano is expected to ask the parties that backed his candidacy to form a broad coalition, an option rejected by Pier Luigi Bersani, Democratic leader, before his humiliating resignation. The new government will be tasked with carrying out institutional and economic reform before returning to the polls, perhaps in October or early next year. The stakes for Italy’s established parties are high. Deeply fractured, the Democrats could fail to find a new leader capable of holding them together. Mr Berlusconi’s future is threatened by his various court cases. Mr Monti is unpopular. But with Mr Grillo confident of winning the next election outright, Italy’s old guard has every incentive to bury their differences.
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