Berlusconi rejects Prodi's man for Italy president

By Robin Pomeroy and Francesca Piscioneri

ROME - Italy's outgoing Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi rejected the incoming government's preferred presidential candidate today, dashing hopes for a quick appointment to the country's top job.

Romano Prodi, who narrowly beat Berlusconi's centre-right government in last month's general election, wanted Massimo D'Alema, chairman of the biggest party in his coalition, the Democrats of the Left (DS), to become head of state.

With a slim parliamentary majority, Prodi may find it difficult to get approval for his candidate without support from the opposition. He met Berlusconi on Thursday aiming to smooth their prickly relationship and find a deal.

But a day after the hour-long meeting which Italian newspapers described as tense, Berlusconi said he would not support D'Alema, a former prime minister.

"When you talk about the president of the republic, it has to be someone who is a guarantor of the constitution, the flag and unity of Italy," he told reporters in Naples.

"It must be someone who can give to all sides guarantees of an absolute, total impartiality," he said.

The media tycoon, who refused to concede defeat for more than three weeks after the election, said D'Alema's history in the Italian Communist Party (PCI) ruled him out of the post.

"When it was suggested they change the hammer and sickle symbol, he said publicly: 'we shouldn't trouble ourselves with getting rid of it because it's a symbol -- which is a symbol of terror and death -- that remains close to our hearts'," he said.

The PCI transformed itself into the Democrats of the Left in the early 1990s, dropping the communist brand, but Berlusconi has consistently railed against communists and portrayed himself as the defender of Italy against the hard left.

Italy's parliament is due to convene next week to elect a successor to 85-year-old President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi whose term ends this month.

Although it is a largely titular position, the appointment is of heightened significance this time because Prodi cannot form a government before the new president gives him a mandate.

Under the constitution, the head of state has the power to nominate the prime minister and dissolve parliament.

Prodi is under pressure to hand the job to D'Alema because the DS failed to win either speakership of the lower and upper houses of parliament and feels it is overdue a prestigious post.

After a lengthy meeting with his allies today, Prodi asked one of his aides to see whether an agreement could be found with the centre-right on a mutually acceptable candidate.

"We didn't go into the detail of names but Massimo D'Alema remains a top-notch candidate," Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio of the Greens party told reporters as he left the meeting.

Prodi's broad coalition could use its narrow majority to push its preferred candidate through the assembly, but probably not without several bruising rounds of votes.

Such a move would also be considered a provocation by centre-right politicians and voters who return to the polls at the end of the month in local elections which will be an early test of Prodi's popularity.

A two-thirds majority is required to elect a president in the first three rounds of voting, and a simple majority after that. It took 13 days to elect Ciampi's predecessor in 1992.

Other possible presidential candidates include former prime minister Giuliano Amato, former European Commissioner Mario Monti and Berlusconi's close aide Gianni Letta.

- REUTERS