Political crisis after PM resigns

February 21, 2007

Italy's Prime Minister Romano Prodi has resigned after the government was defeated in a Senate vote on foreign policy. Prodi had been in power for just nine months. President Giorgio Napolitano, the supreme arbiter of Italian politics, will now hold talks with party leaders to discuss the way forward. Divided over the Afghan war and ties with the U.S. military, Prodi's centre-left government was unable to secure enough votes for a motion backing Rome's foreign policy.