IF THE opinion polls are right Romano Prodi will win power today with a slim majority and a fragmented coalition — weaknesses that Silvio Berlusconi and the Right will hope to exploit to bring him down.

The Left claims that this has been Signor Berlusconi’s strategy from the outset. Last December he rushed through a new electoral law returning Italy to full proportional representation and abolishing the element of “first past the past” majority voting approved by a referendum in 1993.

As a result whoever wins, even if it is Signor Berlusconi himself, is likely to enjoy a smaller parliamentary majority than the outgoing administration.

There is the possibility of a hung parliament, with the Right winning the Senate and the Left a majority in the Lower House, an impasse which would lead to new elections.

The arithmetic has aroused fears of a return to the unstable “revolving-door” coalitions which plagued postwar Italy. Sergio Romano, Italy’s leading political commentator, said that Signor Berlusconi had “done the country a service” by serving a full five-year term since his election in 2001, becoming the head of Italy’s longest-serving postwar government. But he had reintroduced proportional representation for his own benefit, just as he had used his five years in power to pass laws to help him to evade corruption charges.

“Berlusconi has created a new political system, but is also the main obstacle preventing it from functioning,” Romano said. “He is the problem, not the solution.”

Last week Signor Berlusconi admitted that he faced defeat, but by “an absolutely hairline margin”, adding “I shall still be in parliament”. Aware that other centre-right leaders are already manoeuvring to succeed him, Signor Berlusconi moved to quash speculation that he would return to business, telling one of his own television stations that he would be “leader of the opposition . . . I will never return to work in my companies”.

Signor Berlusconi is sure to attack cracks in Signor Prodi’s motley coalition, which embraces social democrats, centrists, Catholics, Greens and Communists. Fausto Bertinotti, leader of the Communist Refoundation party, said it expected to be given the Ministries of Economy, Culture and Education.

When he was last in office Signor Prodi was brought down by a single Communist vote after 2½ years in power.

The hard Left remains suspicious of Signor Prodi’s plans for job market flexibility, cuts in payroll taxes, deregulation and structural reforms.

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