Italy's Prime Minister Romano Prodi survived a confidence vote in the Senate on Friday, winning the stamp of approval for his new government from the upper house of parliament where he has just two seats more than the opposition.

Prime Minister Romano Prodi makes his first speech as the country's leader to the Senate in Rome May 18, 2006. [Reuters]

Prodi won by 165 votes to 155, with his margin of victory boosted by a "yes" vote from all seven of Italy's unelected senators for life and one independent senator.

"It couldn't have gone better," Prodi said, moments after winning the vote that, had he lost, would have seen him stripped of power and probably facing the end of his political career.

The Senate vote was an uncomfortable test for Prodi as the tiny majority he won at April's national election meant he needed all his senators to be present and voting for him.

He now faces a second confidence vote, early next week, from the lower house. That will be less of a cliffhanger as he has a larger majority there due to an electoral system which awards the winning coalition extra seats.

In the Senate. the centre-left administration has 158 seats against 156 for the opposition led by Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister who still contests the election results and has predicted the new government will soon collapse.

"We have a solid and cohesive majority in both chambers," Prodi said in a speech ahead of the vote, to howls of derision from centre-right senators.

"Silvio Berlusconi will be back soon, your government will be brief," Renato Schifani, the head of Berlusconi's Forza Italia party in the Senate, told Prodi during the debate.

Page:

1

2