Emotional Italian president slams parties, government in sight

Newly re-elected president Giorgio Napolitano delivered an emotional rebuke to Italy's warring political factions on Monday and announced talks that could see a grand coalition government formed within days to end two months of post-election stalemate.
The 87-year-old Napolitano said he had only accepted an unprecedented second term as head of state because of the "dramatic alarm" facing Italy since national elections on February 24 and 25 left no party able to govern alone. In an inaugural address to parliament, two days after it elected him, he called for the swift formation of a new government backed by the main political parties. He said they needed to uphold Italy's commitment to European Union allies, who have seen deadlock in Rome trouble their common currency.
Financial markets rose in response to the weekend vote for the presidency, a post that is largely ceremonial but which has a key role in steering the formation of coalition governments. Accusing the parties and their leaders of "irresponsibility" and threatening to resign if they failed to cooperate with him now in the national interest, Napolitano choked back emotion as he said the parliamentary election result had created "the unavoidable necessity of an understanding between the different political forces to give birth to and maintain a government".
In a statement issued after the speech, he said he would begin a "rapid series of meetings" with parliamentary leaders but made clear that they would not involve long consultations, suggesting a government could be in place within a day or two. His voice occasionally breaking as he fought back tears, Napolitano chastised the parties for obstructing his efforts to push them towards agreeing reforms to revive Italy's stagnant economy and often ineffective political institutions.
Accusing the very parties which had begged him to remain in office despite his reluctance of being deaf to his past appeals during two months of negotiations on a government, he said he would not tolerate further refusal to do what was needed to pull Italy out of crisis. He threatened to resign if ignored again. "I have a duty to be frank. If I find myself once again facing the kind of deafness I ran into in the past, I will not hesitate to draw the consequences," he said. The speech was at times interrupted by thunderous applause as the listening parliamentarians cheered the relentless dissection of their flaws offered by Napolitano, a former communist veteran of decades in the upper reaches of Italian politics.