Mission is 'difficult, not impossible', he says - Senate Speaker Franco Marini began talks with political parties on Thursday in a bid to drum up support for an interim government tasked with approving a new electoral law.
Marini, a 74-year-old former unionist, was given the job on Wednesday by President Giorgio Napolitano, who is keen to avoid calling fresh elections less than two years after the last vote.
''What I'm looking for is wide, political consensus, not personal support,'' he said, adding that his mission was ''difficult but not impossible''.
Consultations held by Napolitano earlier this week appeared to show that a large part of the centre left was in favour of an interim government for reform while the centre right was entirely against it.
Marini started off his exploratory talks by meeting the smallest parties in parliament. He expects to wind up with the two biggest ones - Forza Italia and the Democratic Party - on Monday.
''Civil society is inviting us in chorus to find an accord'' on a new electoral law, he said, referring to calls from unions, industrialists and small business associations.
The current electoral law, approved by the centre-right government of Silvio Berlusconi in late 2005, is held by many analysts and left-wing politicians to be partly responsible for the instability of Romano Prodi's government.
Fearing that new elections under the same law will produce a government as precarious as Prodi's, Napolitano wants a new law in place before he dissolves parliament.
Few analysts expect Marini to be successful in his quest for consensus.
Berlusconi, who is aiming to become premier for the third time, repeated on Wednesday that for him there was ''no alternative'' to elections and that the electoral law was fine as it was.
His most important ally, National Alliance leader Gianfranco Fini, has taken the same line. As Marini started his talks, Fini said bluntly that the nation would be going to the polls on April 6 or 13.
Another centre-right party, the Northern League, even talked about withdrawing its MPs from parliament if Marini found a majority willing to support him and formed an interim government.
But the other key centre-right party, the Christian Democrat UDC, was divided on the prospect of a Marini government for reform. leader Pierferdinando Casini initially held the door open to the idea and then closed it.
When Casini ruled out collaboration entirely, two respected members of his party defected and announced they were forming a new centrist party called the White Rose. They said they supported Marini's efforts.
