Berlusconi meets president

Berlusconi: Shaping a new administration

ROME, Italy -- Silvio Berlusconi has met Italy's president for talks on forming a government following his centre-right bloc's election victory.

Berlusconi has so far made no comment on demands by the small devolutionist, anti-immigration Northern League for a part in that government.

His centre-right coalition, consisting of Berlusconi's Forza Italia, the rightist National Alliance, two small centrist parties as well as the League, has a majority of just 14 in the 324-seat Senate.

The upper house consists of 315 senators elected on Sunday and nine non-elected life senators.

Of those nine, only two might back Berlusconi -- former President Francesco Cossiga and Fiat honorary chairman Gianni Agnelli. One, former President Giovanni Leone, is frail and ill.

Berlusconi therefore looks set to require the support of the League's 17 senators to push him over the 163 absolute majority mark.

Italy's European Union partners expressed concern during the campaign about any influence the party, led by Umberto Bossi, who has denounced Brussels as over-bureaucratic and behaving like a "Soviet Union of the West," could wield.

But Bossi has publicly staked his claim to a role: "We are a decisive factor in the Senate," he told a news conference.

"There is no doubt that we will have our men in important posts in ministries."

Apart from a place at the cabinet table, Bossi wants his deputy, Roberto Maroni, to be named as speaker in one of the two houses.

Berlusconi's coalition has a more comfortable margin of 53 in the lower Chamber of Deputies.

Berlusconi paid his first visit to Rome on Wednesday since winning power. After two hours at the presidential palace he made no comments to reporters.

Italian procedures require President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi to sound out, in formal consultations, the heads of all parties before giving the mandate for the premiership, and it could well be several weeks before a new premier and cabinet is sworn in.

The new parliament, which will hold a vote of confidence on the next government, convenes on May 30.

Meanwhile, the centre-left Olive Tree coalition is seeking to save some face after Sunday's general election defeat in the close mayoral races in three of the country's biggest cities.

Decisive run-offs for the mayoralties of Rome, Turin and Naples are set for May 27.

"Until the 27th of May, our sole commitment will be that of winning the run-offs. After that we will open a discussion within the party," said Piero Fassino, the centre left's candidate for vice prime minister in Sunday's election and a leading member of the Democrats of the Left (DS).

Centre-left candidates made strong showings in the first round of each of the races, but the centre right, strengthened by its general election victory, says the races are still open.

"We will mobilise ourselves to get close to the hearts of voters. We will go door to door," said Mario Baccini, an ally of centre right Rome mayor candidate Antonio Tajani, who garnered 45.1 percent.

Walter Veltroni, the outgoing leader of the DS, topped the first round on the Roman poll with 48.3 percent.

The race was even tighter in northwestern Turin with centre-left candidate Sergio Chiamparino, a member of the DS seeking a third term, taking 44.9 percent and centre-right candidate Roberto Rosso 44.4 percent.

In the southern port city of Naples centre-left candidate Rosa Russo Jervolino ended the first round three percent ahead of rival Antonio Martusciello, a former manager at Berlusconi's advertising firm Publitalia.