Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's new government won the first of two parliamentary confidence votes on Wednesday.

The House voted 334 for and 240 against, with 2 abstentions.

The government faces another confidence vote at the Senate Thursday.

According to the local media that Berlusconi shrugged off opposition boos and protests as he addressed the House, warning he would beat the center left in 2006.

"The left should have no doubt about it, lest it believe it has victory all wrapped up: the left should know that we will win in 2006 the way we did in 2001."

Cent-left MPs became particularly boisterous when the premier told the House that Italy's current economic woes were caused by mistakes made by previous governments and by the opposition's negative image of the country.

"The opposition must also stop its wolf cries, saying that everything is wrong, spreading pessimism, catastrophism and defeatist attitudes when its MPs go on TV every evening."

Berlusconi said this "defeatist" attitude was a sort of national trait that discourages businesses from investing in the country and sours personal initiatives.

But the leader of a key Berlusconi ally UDC Marco Follini - deputy premier in Berlusconi's previous government - hinted that not all everyone in center right was ready to roll along pretending that nothing was wrong.

"We cannot coast towards 2006 ... as if everything were already decided: the structure of the coalition, the leader, and perhaps, even the result," Follini said.

Italian Democratic Left leader Piero Fassino added his share, telling Berlusconi that his squabbling coalition had agreed to a new government while they look around for another leaders.

Berlusconi was forced to temporarily resign last week and re-form his government after two key allies, the rightist National Alliance (AN) and the centrist, Catholic UDC, demanded a policy overhaul with more focus on the south, the economy and lower-income families.

The two parties in the four-way coalition argued that a new-look executive would send the right message of "discontinuation" to disenchanted voters after the center right's crushing defeat in local elections.

In the April 3-4 vote, the center right lost all but two of the13 regional governments up for grabs in the 20-region nation. The opposition gained 52.9 percent of the vote against the governing coalition's 45.1 percent.

Berlusconi's own party Forza Italia (Go Italy) made its worst ever showing, taking just 18.4 percent of the vote compared to the 29 percent it garnered in the 2001 general election.

(Xinhua News Agency April 28, 2005)