Italian Premier Romano Prodi said on Thursday that he would press ahead with budget spending cuts and tax hikes despite his falling popularity with voters.
Speaking in a television interview the day before a do-or-die Senate vote on the 2007 budget, Prodi conceded that there was "discontent" in the country but added: "One doesn't govern by following the polls".
"Do you think one can cure the country by wavering, changing stance and trying to please everyone? That's inconceivable.
"Either we're all lying... or we have a sick person who doesn't want to take his medicine," the centre-left chief told Sky Italia news channel.
The premier renewed his defence of the unwieldy, 34.7-billion-euro budget package, branded a growth-stifling tax sting by the Silvio Berlusconi-headed opposition.
He said it would not "solve all the country's problems" but was an "indispensable step" for setting it on the right track.
Prodi, whose first, 1996-8 government was brought down in a budget dispute, acknowledged that errors had been made in the handling of the budget but insisted that the manoeuvre would boost the economy, predicting that GDP next year would grow by more than the government's forecast 1.3%.
The government has been accused of mishandling its presentation of the budget, with non-stop contradictory changes and announcements generating a sense of chaos in the public mind.
The six-month-old government's popularity has certainly been dented and hundreds of thousands of Italians took part in an opposition-led anti-budget rally in Rome earlier this month.
The premier has also been booed and heckled in public over the past week, even in his hometown of Bologna.
A poll of 1,000 voters taken by the IPR marketing group and published by left-leaning daily La Repubblica on Thursday showed that 42% now had confidence in Prodi compared to 58% in July, while the percentage of those who said they had no confidence was up from 37% to 52%.
Confidence in the government as a whole was down from 63% to 38% while the percentage who said they had none or little was up from 36% to 58%.
Economy Minister Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, the architect of the budget, was the least popular minister with just 36% expressing confidence in him.
Another poll published by the daily Corriere della Sera earlier this week said approval ratings for the government had sunk to 31% and those for Prodi to 37%.
Prodi remained unfazed in his interview with Sky Italia, saying his popularity had suffered similarly in 1996, when he passed his first budget.
"That was a tough budget too and was met with catcalls and a fall in ratings," he said.
Prodi also shrugged off predictions from Berlusconi that his nine-party governing coalition would soon fall.
"He said we would implode back in July and that we would never make it through the summer. Then he said we would fall on the budget. Now he says it will happen in January... Berlusconi is very flexible, and I like that," he commented.
KNIFE-EDGE SENATE VOTE.
The budget will be put to a confidence vote in the Senate on Friday evening, after which it returns to the House for a definitive green light.
Prodi holds a majority of only one seat in the Senate and is anxious not only to speed up approval of the budget but also avoid it being sunk by the opposition or defectors from his own coalition, which ranges from Communists to centrist Catholics.
The premier can expect a helping hand from the Senate's seven unelected life senators, who have supported Prodi's government in past confidence votes.
But he will still need to marshal his troops to ensure unity and a full presence.
The budget includes dozens of tax-hiking measures, including a reform of the income tax system which will usher in higher taxes for those on more than 40,000 euros a year.
Prodi says the tough measures are needed to bring down Italy's rising deficit and public debt levels and has accused Berlusconi of mismanaging the country's finances during his time in power.
Italy's debt mountain, which is the third biggest in the world, now stands at some 107.6% of GDP while the public deficit, which has breached the EU's 3% limit for the past three years, is expected to rise to 5.7% by the end of 2006.
The previous, Berlusconi government promised the European Commission that the deficit would be slashed to 2.8% by the end of 2007 and the EC has ruled out an extension on that deadline.
The Bank of Italy said this week the target could be met providing the country saw GDP growth of 1.8% next year.
Berlusconi defended his government's record on Thursday, saying there was no need for such a hefty budget.
"This is a terrible budget because it imposes pointless sacrifices on Italians, when cutting public spending by 15 billion euros was all that needed to be done," the former premier said.
