| Posted on the off chance that Europe still matters. |
Romano Prodi's candidate failed early Saturday to win the necessary votes to become Senate president during Parliament's chaotic first session, a sign of potential trouble ahead for the incoming government in the divided house.The outcome of the third inconclusive ballot capped a confused voting session that began nearly 13 hours earlier. Prodi's forces narrowly won April 9-10 elections, although outgoing Premier Silvio Berlusconi has refused to concede. While Prodi's allies have a workable majority in the lower Chamber of Deputies, they have only a two-seat majority in the Senate, and the Senate president vote was seen as a test of his coalition's ability to remain united.
During a third ballot, Prodi's pick for the post, Franco Marini, won 161 votes compared to 155 for former Christian Democrat premier Giulio Andreotti, the nominee of Berlusconi's coalition. Marini needed 162 to get the presidency. Five ballots were blank and a sixth was declared void. The Senate's provisional chief, Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, scheduled a new round of voting for later Saturday morning.
The close votes and the tensions that arose as ballots were being cast reinforced the impression that with such a slim majority in the house, Prodi's forces will find it exceedingly difficult to push through legislation assuming Prodi is given a mandate to form a government.
In the lower house, the president is expected to be Prodi's ally and nominee, Communist leader Fausto Bertinotti. However, Bertinotti failed to garner the necessary two-thirds of the votes in the first three rounds of balloting. A fourth round - in which Bertinotti only needs a simple majority - was scheduled for Saturday.
Prodi's Union coalition ranges from pro-Vatican moderates to Communists, and already has shown signs of fraying over which politician gets which post under his tenure.