Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi resolved a bruising row with his coalition partners on Saturday and named a new government tasked with reviving the sluggish economy ahead of next year's general elections. The cabinet will be sworn into office later on Saturday and will include new health, industry and communications ministers. It will also mark a return to frontline politics for Berlusconi's long time ally, Giulio Tremonti, who was named deputy prime minister just 10 months after being ousted as economy minister during ferocious coalition feuding.
Centre-left opposition politicians said the new government, put together in just three days, was little more than a carbon copy of the old administration and would be incapable of confronting the economic and social problems besieging Italy.
"This is just a rancid second-course dish that has been reheated," said former anti-graft magistrate Antonio Di Pietro, who is a prominent centre-left politician.
But coalition allies said the government represented a symbolic break with the past, and would focus its efforts on boosting industry, increasing employment in the poorer south and protecting the purchasing power of Italian families.
Berlusconi was forced to step down last week by two allies who demanded radical strategy changes after the centre right suffered a crushing defeat in April regional elections.
Both the rebel parties, the National Alliance (AN) and the Union of Christian Democrats (UDC), have returned to the new government after winning assurances that it would address the problems of the south, where unemployment is 16 percent.
The prime minister was livid at being forced to quit and has emerged from the crisis with his authority dented. However, he has at least managed to stave off the threat of snap elections which opinion polls had predicted he would lose.
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