Prodi to take on Berlusconi in Italian elections
Former European Commission president Romano Prodi has been elected in centre-left primaries to challenge his rival and current prime minister Silvio Berlusconi in Italy’s general elections next May.
The European press reports that Mr Prodi on Sunday (16 October) won a convincing 75 percent support among voters of the Italian centre-left, which had organised the first American-style primaries in Italian history to elect its frontrunner.
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The result means Mr Prodi is set to launch a bid for a return to the EU’s political stage as Italy’s prime minister, after his term at the helm of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004.
Mr Prodi welcomed the result of the vote. He stated "Today, voters have sent a clear message: that the arrogance of the government will have no success", according to Spiegel Online.
But Mr Berlusconi reacted by saying that the victory was the only one Mr Prodi was going to enjoy.
The Italian centre-left opposition coalition which Mr Prodi will lead is called l’Unione (the Union) and comprises several individual parties.
L’Unione had organised the primaries in a bid to overcome the traditional internal squabbles between Italian centre-left parties.
In the election, voters did not need to prove their political affiliation, but were requested to donate one euro each to cover the costs of the election.
Election organisers said the event had been a huge success, as more than 3 million people participated – three times more than they had expected.
Prodi leads Berlusconi
Mr Prodi comfortably leads Mr Berlusconi in opinion polls by up to 9 percentage points.
But Mr Berlusconi’s government is planning to introduce a change in the electoral system which is set to make life difficult for Mr Prodi and l’Unione.
The new electoral law puts more emphasis on individual parties and would oblige Mr Prodi, who is not a member of any of the individual centre-left parties, to join one of them.
Centre left MPs have slammed the electoral reform as an opportunistic attempt by the centre-right to retain power.
On top of this, Sunday's vote was overshadowed by the brutal killing of Francesco Fortugno, the vice president of the regional government of Calabria.
Mr Fortugno was shot while leaving a polling station where he had just voted in the primaries, according to press reports.