Prodi's candidate, Giorgio Napolitano, an ex-Communist, 80-year-old life senator, was elected as Italy's 11th postwar president on Wednesday.

He secured 543 votes from the "grand electors," parliamentarians and regional representatives, 38 more than the absolute majority needed.

The result was a crucial victory for Prodi who cannot take office until the new president is in place and gives him a mandate. It was the latest blow to Berlusconi who took three weeks to accept he lost the April 9-10 national election by a whisker.

After the vote, Prodi told reporters he expected his government would he sworn in by next Wednesday, after Napolitano takes over from outgoing President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, possibly on Monday.

"Italy needs a government to lift it out of crisis," Prodi said after the vote, referring to the challenge of reforming a chronically weak economy with a rapidly ageing population. "I need the help of all Italians and I will have to earn that."

The president-elect is a member of the Democrats of the Left, the post-Cold War incarnation of what was once Western Europe's biggest Communist party. He becomes the first ex-Communist to take the country's highest political seat.

Asked if the election had left him emotional, Napolitano responded with typical understatement: "What do you think?"

Prodi's coalition pushed his candidate through against the wishes of the opposition after political stalemate prevented a conclusive result in three initial rounds of voting on Monday and Tuesday, during which a two-thirds majority was needed.

Napolitano's victory will have come as a huge relief to Prodi as it showed he does have the political stature to rally his troops to defeat Berlusconi who remains a strong force as head of the single biggest party in parliament.

Berlusconi grudgingly acknowledged Napolitano's election. "We are still convinced that half of the country has been excluded," he said. "This is not the will of the people but we wish him well."

But Prodi's failure to get his choice elected in the early rounds, and the fact 540 people did not vote for Napolitano yesterday, highlighted the challenge he will have in order to achieve painful reforms economists say Italy needs.

Napolitano, a former house speaker and interior minister who was appointed to the rare honorary position of senator for life last year, will be Italy's 11th post-World War II head of state.

The post of president is largely ceremonial but he has the power to name the prime minister, dissolve parliament and send legislation back to parliament if he deems it unconstitutional.

(China Daily May 11, 2006)