Berlusconi forms new govt

Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (R) gives a press conference after a meeting with Italian President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi yesterday in Rome. Berlusconi announced his new cabinet line-up, keeping much of the same team but adding his long-time ally and former economy minister Giulio Tremonti as a new deputy premier. PHOTO: AFP

Seeking to end Italy's worst political crisis in four years, Berlusconi retained National Alliance (AN) leader Gianfranco Fini as his other deputy prime minister and foreign minister in a government dubbed "Berlusconi II" that he hopes will carry him through to general elections next year.

The prime minister faces a vote of confidence in parliament next week when he is to present his new government program.

Berlusconi apparently overcame Fini's objections to the appointment of Tremonti, sacked last year after the AN leader accused him of allowing Italy's budget deficit to spin out of control.

The coalition's Northern League reportedly backed the return of Tremonti, a northern Italian credited with renewing ties between Berlusconi and the League after it brought down his first government in 1994.

Berlusconi announced the new cabinet list -- which also retains Domenico Siniscalco as economy minister and brings in Francesco Storace of Fini's AN as health minister -- after meeting with President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.

Asked on Friday by Ciampi to stay on and form another government, the 68-year-old media magnate had insisted that his new team would not be a "photocopy" of the previous one.

Berlusconi had resigned Wednesday in the wake of a major electoral rout early this month, after the Christian Democrat UDC party withdrew its ministers from his cabinet and asked for a new government with a revamped program.