Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is refusing to concede defeat to his opponent Romano Prodi in elections early this month even as a top court confirmed the center-left coalition's majority in parliament's lower house.
Prodi, meanwhile, was working to form his Cabinet, holding daily talks with allies.
La Repubblica newspaper reported on Thursday that he plans to give the Economics Ministry -- a key post amid Italy's economic woes -- to Tommaso Padoa Schioppa, a former board member of the European Central Bank and a highly respected economist.
Prodi had lunch with Padoa Schioppa on Thursday in downtown Rome. He later told the ANSA news agency that "there are still no names for the government."
While the final breakdown of seats for the Senate was still to be announced, Prodi's two-seat majority in the upper house was widely expected to be confirmed.
The former premier and EU chief has said there are no more doubts about his victory, and on Thursday he described the center-right's refusal to concede as sad.
"Sooner or later they will recognize how things are," Prodi said. "It is very sad that there should be something like this in a mature democracy."
still combative
Berlusconi has not made any public comments since the court's announcement on Wednesday that Prodi had won the lower house by 24,755 votes -- a margin virtually unchanged from the one previously announced. The court made the announcement after a review of contested ballots.
But Italian newspapers said on Thursday that the prime minister remained as combative as ever.
"We'll fight. They'll have to deal with us," he was quoted as saying in La Repubblica, a left-leaning daily. Other newspapers had similar comments, and many reported the conservative leader has no intention of calling Prodi.
Several world leaders, including from Britain, France, Germany and Israel, have called Prodi to congratulate him. However, two close Berlusconi allies, US President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin, have not called Prodi yet, his office said on Thursday.
Berlusconi has remained defiant since the results of the April 9-10 election -- one of the closest in Italian history -- showed he had lost control of parliament.
For days, he has alleged irregularities and at one point he even spoke of fraud, only to quickly retract. He has said that the razor-thin margin of Prodi's victory required thorough checks and contended the vote of Italians abroad was marred by irregularities.
Berlusconi even raised the possibility of a "grand coalition" government, but the proposal was quickly dismissed by Prodi and other center-left leaders.
After the court's announcement on Wednesday, the prime minister left it up to his allies to announce further action and demand a more thorough review.
shaky support
Under Italian law, after the review of contested ballots, any further challenges or complaints would be dealt with by the electoral committees set up by the new parliament after it convenes. Such checks can take months and are not expected to stall the political process.
At least some of the prime minister's allies strayed from his position. The leader of a small centrist party in the conservative coalition, Lorenzo Cesa, offered his best wishes to Prodi, while a Cabinet minister, Stefania Prestigiacomo, urged her fellow conservatives to recognize the center-left's victory.
A US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
PAPAL RETORT: Pope Leo told reporters that he has ‘no fear, neither of the Trump administration nor speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel’ US President Donald Trump has feuded with Pope Leo XIV over the Iran conflict — setting off an unholy row that could have serious political implications for the Republican leader back in the US. Trump has drawn barbs even from some allies over the attacks on the US-born pontiff, who has criticized the Trump administration over its immigration crackdown, the intervention in Venezuela and the Iran war. The president risks alienating the religious right in November’s crucial US midterm elections. So far the unprecedented clash between the leader of the most powerful military on Earth and the head of the world’s 1.4 billion
A 16-year-old boy has been charged with murder and aggravated sexual abuse in Florida in the death of his 18-year-old stepsister on a Carnival Cruise ship, the US Department of Justice said on Monday. Timothy Hudson was initially charged in February and subsequently indicted on March 10, but the breadth of the case was not known until a seal was lifted on Friday last week, weeks after US District Judge Beth Bloom in Miami said that he would be prosecuted as an adult at the request of the government. Anna Kepner had been traveling on the Carnival Horizon ship in November last
RSS