Left to try to form Italy’s new Govt

ROME, OCT 17: Italy's President has asked ex-communist Massimo D'Alema to try to form a new governing majority, giving D'Alema the chance...

ROME, OCT 17: Italy’s President has asked ex-communist Massimo D’Alema to try to form a new governing majority, giving D’Alema the chance to become the country’s first-ever premier to emerge from the old communist party.

If he succeeds, Italy would get its farthest left-leaning government yet. Although D’Alema himself stands with Italy’s moderates on such matters as privatisation and NATO, to secure a majority he could have to offer cabinet seats to the hard-core communists, who oppose both and are generally anti-American.

Calling President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro’s mandate a “great responsibility,” D’Alema said, “I’ll try to reduce conflicts and to not let down expectations.”

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He leads the Democratic Left, a more moderate successor of what until earlier in the 1990s was Italy’s communist party. The democratic left is the largest in Parliament and until a week ago part of the governing olive tree coalition of Romano Prodi.

Prodi’s Centre-left government fell after it lost the support of Italy’sdiehard communists, who said his deficit-cutting budget didn’t do enough to create jobs.

Prodi admitted defeat yesterday in efforts to cobble together a new majority and his olive tree threw its support to D’Alema.

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