Italy's new parliament elects speakers

Berlusconi aims to complete a full five-year term

By David Willey in Rome

The newly elected Italian parliament has met for the first time in Rome since billionaire media magnate Silvio Berlusconi won this month's general election.

Once balloting for speakers of both houses is completed - which may take until Thursday - Mr Berlusconi will be formally asked to form a new government.

Northern League's Umberto Bossi is pushing for cabinet posts

One of Mr Berlusconi's election allies, the Northern League, failed in its bid to obtain one of the key speakers' posts in the new parliament.

As a consolation prize they are expected to be offered the post of justice minister in the new right-wing coalition.

Mr Berlusconi has proposed a lawyer from his own Forza Italia party as new speaker of the Senate. The leader of a small Catholic centre-right party, Pierferdinando Casini, has been nominated as speaker of the lower house, the Chamber of Deputies.

Coalition bickering

Once these parliamentary formalities have been completed, President Ciampi is expected to ask Mr Berlusconi to form Italy's 59th government since the end of World War II.

Though his list of ministers is not yet complete it seems certain that the key post of foreign minister will go to a technocrat, not a politician - Renato Ruggiero, the former head of the World Trade Organisation, who will give the new government extra clout abroad.

The new cabinet is expected to be sworn in next week.

Although Mr Berlusconi has said he wants his new administration to last its full five-year term - a feat none of his predecessors has accomplished - there are already signs of friction among his coalition partners.

The Northern League, which brought down Mr Berlusconi's last coalition in 1994 over pension reform, is already bickering about cabinet posts.

Mr Berlusconi can just muster a parliamentary majority without the Northern League but he would clearly be more comfortable with them in government.