Italian opposition leader Silvio Berlusconi has told Italy's president that only early elections can end the political crisis sparked by the resignation of Premier Romano Prodi last week. Berlusconi, a former prime minister, on Tuesday rejected the possibility of an interim government and said an electoral law widely blamed for Italy's political instability did not need to be changed."We believe there is no other way than returning to the polls and giving the county a government as soon as possible, a government that is immediately operational," The Associated Press reported Berlusconi as saying after talks with President Giorgio Napolitano.
Napolitano was consulting political leaders after Prodi, in office for 20 months, resigned on losing a confidence vote in the Senate.
The prime minister lost his razor-thin majority last week when a centrist party in his center-left coalition withdrew its support. The move wiped out the government's one-vote majority in the Senate.
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