(ANSA) - The opposition's unanointed leader Romano Prodi drew thousands of people to a Rome rally Sunday against the Berlusconi government's budget and planned changes to Italy's electoral law. Estimates of the size of the crowd, which covered Rome's huge Piazza del Popolo, ran to 100 000.
The former premier and European Commission chief slammed the 2006 budget as "irresponsible," claiming Premier Silvio Berlusconi's centre-right government was "running away from the country's problems." He accused the government of enacting "class-based" policies.
Prodi said plans to return to proportional representation "betray the will of the Italian people" who voted for first-past-the-post in a 1993 referendum. He said the planned reform would produce "shaky coalitions," taking Italy back to the days of "constant
in-fighting" between ruling parties. According to Prodi, the Berlusconi-led alliance had decided to do away with Italy's 75% first-past-the-post system because it was "afraid" of losing the 2006 general election and wanted to limit the damage.
"We are a majority in the country," he said, describing the rally as having expressed "a serene force, not aggressive." Prodi claimed Italians were fed up with the alleged "ineptitude" of a government that "promised miracles but has produced only disasters."
Commenting on the rally, Berlusconi's Forza Italia party said it was "happy" it had been covered on live TV so that Italians could see a "modest" leader reel off "a string of banalities." "It's clear that Italy will be in the third division if Prodi wins. Today's rally was a cheap ad," it claimed.
A Berlusconi ally, the devolutionist Northern League, called the rally "Prodi's funeral," saying his opposition Union had shown it was backed by "pro-terrorism" radicals. The rightwing National Alliance (AN) expressed a similar view, claiming Prodi had been afraid of announcing any policy because he was influenced by "Communists and anti-capitalists."
AN leader Gianfranco Fini contrasted Prodi with Gerhard Schroeder of Germany, who had ruled out an alliance with communists that would have kept him in the saddle as German chancellor. Fausto Bertinotti, the leader of Communist Refoundation who brought Prodi's first government down in 1996, said his ideas were "different from but compatible with" Prodi's.
