ROMANO PRODI returns to Italy this week to open his campaign to unseat Silvio Berlusconi, his arch rival, buoyed by stunning victories for the Centre Left in seven parliamentary by-elections.

The seats included one in Milan, which was vacated by Umberto Bossi — the leader of the Northern League and a key member of Signor Berlusconi’s coalition of the Centre Right — after he suffered a stroke in March.

The Centre Left also won the Naples constituency of Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of the Duce, who becomes a Euro MP.

“Seven zero — It sounds like a crushing tennis win,” La Repubblica said.

Signor Prodi, who bows out as President of the European Commission on Friday, said that the result was “extraordinary. It’s proof that united we win.”

The Berlusconi Government had made errors ranging from the commitment of Italian troops in Iraq to a loss of influence in Europe and failure to cut taxes, he said.

Signor Berlusconi held a crisis meeting of his coalition yesterday, blaming the results on low turnout, but also on coalition squabbling over tax reform. The election boost for the Centre Left said more about disappointment with the Right than enthusiasm for the Left, Corriere della Sera said.

Nevertheless, the voters’ mood will put a smile on Signor Prodi’s face on Friday when he stands alongside Signor Berlusconi for the signing of the new European constitution in Rome, an event that Signor Berlusconi had hoped would boost his own prestige. As soon as the ink is dry, Signor Prodi will start campaigning to return to power.

There is still a long way to go until the next Italian general election in 2006, and the Centre Right argues that voters have not yet felt the benefits of its reforms. Moreover, in February next year Signor Prodi has to compete in unprecedented US-style “primaries”, which will choose the Centre Left’s candidate for prime minister.

There is little doubt that he will win, but some on the Left — including Piero Fassino, head of the ex-communist Democrats of the Left and the main opposition party — see little point in the “primaries” if they are merely an “empty exercise” designed to rubber-stamp Signor Prodi’s leadership.

For some leftwingers, Signor Prodi, 65, is a respected elder statesman rather than the man to topple Signor Berlusconi, 67. Behind the scenes, pressure is growing for him anoint a successor.

“Prodi must be careful not to be stabbed in the back” Il Messaggero, the Rome daily, said. “It is the Julius Caesar syndrome.”

Massimo D’Alema, the former Centre Left Prime Minister, told the left-wing newspaper Il Nuovo Riformista that there was a “campaign under way to weaken and undermine Romano Prodi”. He said that Walter Veltroni, the popular and personable Mayor of Rome, 49, was the most likely future leader of the Centre Left, although there were “ other candidates”.

Signor Veltroni, a Prodi loyalist who was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Culture in the first Prodi Administration, has indicated that he will not stand for prime minister until the 2011 election. But some on the Left are asking why a new leader should wait another seven years to recapture the “spirit of 1996”, when Signor Prodi led a coalition of ex-communists, social democrats, liberal centrists and Greens to an historic election victory. The “Olive Tree” coalition that Signor Prodi forged held power for five years.

Signor Prodi last month reached an outline accord with the Centre Left parties on the need for a common programme and a single leader. The resulting Grand Democratic Alliance includes: the Democrats of the Left, led by Signor Fassino; the liberal Margherita faction, led by Francesco Rutelli, 50, the former Mayor of Rome; and the Refounded Communist Party, whose leader, Fausto Bertinotti, 64, is set to mount a symbolic challenge to Signor Prodi in the primaries.

Last week the Grand Democratic Alliance agreed to hold street protests on November 6 against the Berlusconi Government’s draft 2005 budget.

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