Rome – He is known as “Il Professore” – a former economics lecturer who reminds Italians of a small-town priest and is apt to make their eyes glaze over with his soft monotone.
But despite his lack of charisma, Romano Prodi is the only man who has ever defeated Premier Silvio Berlusconi in an election – and might do so again when Italians vote for a new parliament today and Monday. Polls are banned in the 15 days before an election, but the last one put him slightly ahead.
After five tempestuous years of Berlusconi – the verbal outbursts, the threat of corruption indictments, his support for the war in Iraq – Prodi is gambling that Italians will go for staid and boring.
Hence, one of his election slogans presents him as an average man who will bring “seriousness to the government.”
“Italy knows it needs harmony,” Prodi says.
As premier from 1996 to 1998, he won plaudits for putting Italy’s shaky finances in shape in time to adopt Europe’s new currency, the euro, but his government fell after 2 1/2 years, losing a parliamentary vote of confidence by a single ballot, when a communist ally withdrew support.
A year later, he became president of the European Union Commission, the bloc’s executive arm. During his five years in the EU’s top job, Prodi oversaw the introduction of the euro and the bloc’s eastward expansion in May 2004.
Relations with Berlusconi remained cold.
Prodi says he’ll bring a clear change of direction in Italy’s foreign policy, raising his country’s profile in Europe and toning down Berlusconi’s strong relationship with Washington.
