Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, his government on the brink of collapse after the loss of a key ally, was to address parliament yesterday amid calls for snap elections.
Prodi's government plunged deeper into crisis on Monday after former justice minister Clemente Mastella said that his party, which had pulled out of the ruling coalition last week, would vote against the government in a confidence motion.
Prodi, 68, was to give the lower house Chamber of Deputies a "rundown on the political situation" yesterday morning.
The prime minister held a crisis meeting with his two deputies, Massimo D'Alema and Francesco Rutelli, the leader of the new center-left Democrat Party and Mayor of Rome, Walter Veltroni, and top coalition leaders on Monday.
"The experiment with the center-left is over," Mastella said as he vowed to vote against Prodi in a vote of confidence.
"We want elections," he told reporters.
Mastella's UDEUR party has three seats in the Senate, where Prodi had only a one-seat advantage before the former justice minister withdrew.
Mastella, 60, resigned as justice minister last week after being named in a corruption probe along with his wife.
Former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, leader of the conservative opposition, said voters deserved to have their say because of the crisis.
A foreign policy vote briefly brought down the Prodi government in February last year, but Mastella's resignation -- the first by a minister from the 20-month-old Prodi government -- has brought the threat to a new level.
The troubles could worsen today, when Environment Minister Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio faces a vote of confidence over his handling of the Naples rubbish crisis.
Prodi's coalition ranges from far-left communists and Greens to centrist Catholics.
RSS