Prodi has also resigned

Romano Prodi, the Prime Minster of Italy has been forced to resign after a junior coalition party pulled out of the Government leading to a vote of confidence.

If there were to be another election, Silvio Berlusconi is well placed to lead a new centre-right coalition back to power. It does look like Italy has fallen back into its habit of having short term Governments paralysed by electoral mathematics. Although a parliamentary term runs for 5 years, no Government has achieved such a long time (!) in office.

The most recent long term Government was Berlusconi's from 2001 to 2006, elected under a first past the post system. Unfortunately, Berlusconi changed the system to PR and, hey presto, we're back to instability. The PR system in Italy (pre-1993) led to a proliferation of small parties which formed centre-left and centre-right coalitions. FPTP usually leads to a smaller set of parties but Italian politics was too fragmented for too long for FPTP to have an effect. It now looks like the smaller parties will continue.

If there was ever an argument against PR, Italy is it.

Squiffy.