Italian MPs recalled for second vote on president

ROME - Members of Italy's parliament - split between left and right - were called back to the chamber on Tuesday to try to unblock the political stalemate preventing the election of a new head of state.

Centre-left leader Romano Prodi, who won last month's general election, cannot take office until a president is chosen and gives him a mandate but he has been unable to persuade the centre right to back his presidential choice.

A first round of voting on Monday was inconclusive when the centre right, led by outgoing Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, refused to back Prodi's candidate, a member of the biggest left-wing party.

Giorgio Napolitano, an 80-year-old senator-for-life of the Democrats of the Left (DS), received only eight votes after Prodi instructed his supporters to leave their ballots blank, rather than write his name on the voting slips in what was sure to be a losing battle without the support of the right.

In the first three rounds of voting, a candidate needs the backing of at least two-thirds of the "grand electors" - parliamentarians and regional representatives. That is impossible without an agreement between both sides.

The second round is due to start at 11:30am. (9.30pm NZT), if that fails again, another will follow later on Tuesday.

By the fourth round, which will not take place before Wednesday, a simple majority is enough to elect the president, and if Prodi cannot achieve a bipartisan deal, he should be able to use his slim majority to force his candidate through.

However, keen to avoid the ill feeling such a move would cause among centre-right politicians and voters, Prodi said he hoped to reach a consensus with Berlusconi's bloc on Tuesday.

"We're waiting for confirmation. The signs are good. I hear the House of Freedoms (centre-right bloc) is holding talks and I hope that will bring about an agreement and that tomorrow (Tuesday) the president will be elected," he told reporters as he went home after Monday night's vote.

Berlusconi also struck a conciliatory note.

"Napolitano's candidacy is not to be excluded, we are working to get a wider agreement," he told reporters after his coalition met.

Napolitano, a quiet-spoken elder statesman, was put forward as a candidate only after Berlusconi ruled out supporting the higher-profile Massimo D'Alema, chairman of the DS and, like Napolitano, a former member of the Communist Party.

Political pundits speculate that, if a two-thirds majority cannot be found on Tuesday, D'Alema may return as the front-runner when the simple majority rule comes into effect on Wednesday.

On Monday, 369 centre-right members voted for Gianni Letta, an undersecretary in Berlusconi's outgoing administration and the media tycoon's political right-hand-man.

- REUTERS