Italy Treasurer Named Premier, Will Form New Government

ROME — After three weeks of debilitating political stalemate, Italian President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro on Friday asked Treasury Minister Lamberto Dini, a politically independent technocrat, to form a new government as prime minister.

In a statement after his meeting with the president, Dini accepted the task, saying his proposed new government will consist “substantially of technocrats” chosen for their “capabilities and professionalism.” He also said he will forgo traditional lengthy political party consultations before choosing his ministers.

Dini, 63, will replace controversial media magnate Silvio Berlusconi, who has remained as a caretaker premier since his short-lived government collapsed Dec. 22. Dini became Scalfaro’s choice after prolonged, frustrating consultations failed to reveal any clear majority in a splintered Parliament--or much willingness to forge a new one.

The main goal of a new government, Dini said, will be to implement a budget capable of boosting economic recovery and employment and reducing Italy’s huge public debt.

A respected economist who was No. 2 at the Bank of Italy until he joined Berlusconi’s Cabinet, Dini had been among the top figures touted as a possible candidate for prime minister.

First reactions to his appointment were positive, but it will probably not be apparent until Dini tests the waters on his own whether he will seek to form an open-ended reform government of experts or an interim administration committed to early elections.

Berlusconi, whose political fall was nearly as quick as his rise to office last year, had asked Scalfaro to call new elections or to let him try to form a new government himself.

The right-wing Berlusconi government collapsed after seven months when the federalist Northern League stalked out of the ruling coalition, leaving Berlusconi short of a parliamentary majority and facing a no-confidence vote.

Dini’s nomination climaxed a furious struggle among Italy’s born-again political parties over the content and program of any new government. Electoral and economic reforms, continued privatization and new antitrust legislation are all issues on which there is more political consensus than activity.

A new Italian political class emerged in 1994, after a 2 1/2-year corruption investigation had laid bare an ingrained system of bribery of political officials by industrialists and business people in return for government contracts. None of the old political parties went unscathed, and Forza Italia (Go Italy), Berlusconi’s new free-market party, came to power last spring.

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Hours after Dini left the presidential palace Friday, he met with Berlusconi, who had just hailed Dini’s appointment as “a brief period of truce” useful only in the event of early elections. “Only a return to the polls within a short time,” Berlusconi said, “would give life to a coalition political government that could guarantee . . . stability and solidarity to the political institutions.”

Also demanding early elections was the rightist National Alliance, led by Gianfranco Fini, one of the few professional politicians in Italy’s new political class. Fini said that if Dini succeeds in forming a new coalition, “it will be a government with few and very limited tasks. It will be exquisitely and solely a technical government and . . . therefore a pre-electoral government. Now I’m going off to prepare an electoral campaign.”

Dini’s selection also found favor with Northern League leader Umberto Bossi, who protested before quitting Berlusconi’s coalition that the prime minister, who rode to power on an anti-corruption platform, was himself corrupt and had failed to carry out promised reforms.

Berlusconi has been the subject of investigation for alleged bribery of tax inspectors by members of his business empire, Fininvest, before he became prime minister.