Word: rome
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...national elections scheduled in April. Though his allies have insisted for the past two years that it's time for new leadership on the Italian center-right, Berlusconi will again be its candidate, for the fifth time in 14 years (with two wins, two losses under his belt). Rome Mayor Walter Veltroni, who once served as Prodi's No. 2, is expected to lead the center-left...
...contrast between two very different politicians. The 71-year-old center-right leader hails from the industrial north, having made his mark as a real estate mogul and media entrepreneur, and becoming Italy's richest man. Berlusconi came into politics in 1994 billed as the ultimate outsider, scoffing at Rome's stuffy establishment and passing his downtime singing Neapolitan love ballads and frequenting his palatial villa in Sardinia's Porto Cervo. His refusal to resolve a gargantuan conflict of interest, as owner of Italy's three main private television stations, made him controversial. So too did his frequent gaffes, unintended...
...other hand, is a lifelong politico who talks about Italy's need to be "reasonable" and "pragmatic." He was Vice Premier in Prodi's first government from 1996 to 1998, before moving over to run the capital. Pale and bespectacled, next to the ever-tan, ever-spiffy Berlusconi, the Rome mayor has high-culture tendencies and a book-writing hobby; he has written an earnest novel and a biography of a little-known jazz musician. Veltroni even gets a mention in Ian McEwan's best-selling novel Saturday...
...center-left political insider in Rome told TIME that he now predicts that Italians will return to the polls in April. Refounded Communist leader Fausto Bertinotti, who had worked hand-in-hand with Marini as Lower House Speaker these past two years, told reporters Friday that he too expects early elections. Even a close Marini ally, centrist Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli said he is losing hope. "Arriving at a (positive) result is very difficult," he said. "Obviously we'd like it, but it's a very, very tight passage...
...center-left is scrambling to adjust. The largest party in the outgoing coalition, the Democrats, headed by Rome mayor Walter Veltroni, is trying to lure votes by proposing an electoral system that, like Germany's, would limit the influence of tiny parties. But such parties are legion in Italy, and the scheme frightens many of them. Ex Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema has declared that if Parliament can't pass an electoral reform law, the issue should be put to the people in a national referendum...