The Italian electorate has delivered a convincing if not conclusive vote of confidence in the centre left platform in the result of Sunday's general election. The largest party in the Olive alliance led by Prof Romano Prodi is the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS), most of whose members are former communists who now describe themselves as social democrats; this result will bring them into office, in a decisive break with Italy's post war political history.
Just how far circumstances have shifted was illustrated yesterday by the financial and stock market welcome for the result. The promise of relative government stability, and Mr Prodi's competent managerial record were valued over fear of change. In fact the PDS has became demonstrably moderate. It gives every sign of willingness to co operate responsibly with several other rainbow type parties. The main problem Prof Prodi will face is in reconciling his government programme with parliamentary dependence on the hard line Refoundation Communists who were part of an electoral pact with his alliance and are determined to maximise their influence on the new government. Their demands for the restoration of index linked pay and pensions and a halt to privatisation cut right across the winning coalition's plans for fiscal retrenchment and ambitions to adhere to the Maastricht guidelines for monetary union.
Prof Prodi brings very considerable managerial and political expertise and a stolid image to the new Italian government. He is likely to steer it through such difficulties in the short term, but is unlikely to deliver the longer term of office that for many Italians would be the decisive break from the post war average of about a year's duration for successive governments. One task will be to reassemble the political reform package on which the last interim government collapsed in February, precipitating the general election. This will look further at how to regulate the television monopoly enjoyed by the main loser of this contest, Mr Silvio Berlusconi, who did not disguise the extent of his defeat yesterday. This result is expected to unleash a new round of investigations into his affairs by the magistrates who made the running in exposing the Tangentopoli scandals, which he did so much to try to suppress.
Italian politics enters a new era with this result. The two main alliances contesting the election, using a new voting system, offered a broader and more representative choice to the electorate. The radical changes flowing from the disintegration of the Christian Democrat dominated bloc into corruption scandals after the end of the Cold War were stopped in their tracks over the last couple of years, as the terms of the political transition were worked out.
The Italian economy has boomed in the meantime, buoyed by a weaker lira, creating, the victorious alliance believes, the conditions for constructive structural reforms in many of the country's institutions. Italy's partners in the European Union are likely to welcome this result, which brings to power a coalition of parties committed to further integration. The election has interrupted the Italian EU presidency. Now that it is over there is an opportunity to concentrate on ensuring it makes progress on its agenda, before the presidency is handed to Ireland in July.