Italian President Giorgio Napolitano on Wednesday evening asked center right leader Silvio Berlusconi to form a new Italian government, the 62nd since the end of the war.
Berlusconi broke with protocol and made history by immediately accepting and handing the president a with a list of ministers who will be in his new government.
Traditionally, a candidate asked to form a government accepts 'with reservations', only to return several days later with his list and a decision to lift his 'reservations'.
Berlusconi's new government, which will be sworn in Thursday afternoon, will be composed of 12 full ministers and a dozen or so ministers without portfolio.
Napolitano took less than two days to consult with political forces represented in parliament, as well as his predecessors as head of state, before offering Berlusconi a mandate.
The president said this was possible thanks to the net result of the elections and the sharp reduction of parties in parliament, due to non-allied parites on both the right and left failing to reach the 4% threshold needed in the House and 8% in the Senate to earn seats.
Berlusconi's People of Freedom party (PDL), allied with the devolutionist Northern League, firmly won Italy's snap elections last month with ample majorities in both the House and Senate.
This is the third time that the 71-year-old media tycoon has led government. The first was a brief executive following the 1996 elections and the second his full-term executive from 2001 to 2006, Italy's longest government.
Berlusconi's PDL is a fledgling party created before the elections through the merger of his Forza Italia party and the right-wing National Alliance (AN).
The PDL was a response to the creation earlier of the center-left Democratic Party (PD) made up of the Democratic Left and the centrist Daisy party.
Because of the difficulties the center left had with its nine-party government coalition in the last legislature, the PD refused to lead any broad center-left coalition for the April vote.
This paved the way for the Italian elections to be an almost two-party race, which eliminated most of the smaller parties in parliament.
Forza Italia has the lion's share of ministerial posts, while AN and the devolutionist Northern League, which ran on the same ticket as the PDL, will have a minority status.
Berlusconi's long-time aide Gianni Letta - a respected political fixer - returns as cabinet secretary, while former economy minister Giulio Tremonti and ex-foreign minister Franco Frattini have their old jobs back.
As expected, the Northern Leagu's Roberto Maroni will be interior minister, while party leader Umberto Bossi will be responsible for reform and his deputy Roberto Calderoli will get a new post in charge of simplifying Italy's tangled maze of laws and regulations.
Ignazio La Russa is the new defense minister, while fellow AN members Altero Matteoli will hold the portfolio for public works and transport and Andrea Ronchi will be responsible for European Union affairs.
