Rome - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi led Thursday
the members of his new government - Italy's 62nd in 62 years - in a
swearing-in ceremony in Rome.
The 71-year-old Berlusconi was the first to take an oath of
allegiance to Italy's constitution before the country's head-of-
state, President Giorgio Napolitano.
The premier was followed by his 21-member cabinet, each of whom
repeated the oath before Napolitano in a hall at the presidential
Quirinale Palace.
The new Equal Opportunities Minister, Mara Carfagna, a 32-year-old
former showgirl on television channels owned by Berlusconi, was the
first of the four female cabinet ministers to be sworn in.
Billionaire-turned-politician Berlusconi's return to office came
three weeks after his centre-right coalition's triumph in
parliamentary elections.
'Now we can go back to work after an interruption of two years,'
Berlusconi said late Wednesday after Napolitano handed him a mandate
to form a government.
He was referring to his last stint in office which ended in April
2006 when he lost elections to the centre-left led by former prime
minister Romano Prodi.
Berlusconi's new government includes Franco Frattini who resigned
as the European Union's top security official to take up the post of
foreign minister.
Another key appointment is Giulio Tremonti as economy minister - a
return to the position he held in Berlusconi's last government in
2006.
A more controversial choice was the appointment of former reforms
minister, Roberto Calderoli from the anti-immigration Northern
League, as one of nine ministers not assigned to a specific
department.
Calderoli fills the newly created position of minister to simplify
legislation. He was forced to resign in 2006 after appearing on
television wearing a T-shirt decorated with a satirical cartoon of
the Prophet Mohammed.
Last week Libyan President Moamer Gaddafi's son, Saif el-Islam,
warned of 'catastrophic consequences' for Italy's relations
with Libya if Calderoli joined the new cabinet.
Eleven people were killed in rioting near the Italian consulate
in the Libyan city Benghazi in February 2006, just days after
Calderoli's appearance on television with the offending T-shirt.
Women included in the cabinet are Maria Stella Gelmini as
education minister, Stefania Prestigiacomo as environment minister,
and 31-year-old Giorgia Meloni, the youngest cabinet member, who
takes up post of youth policy minister.
By comparison, six women served in Prodi's outgoing cabinet which
totalled 26 ministers with an average age of 55.65 years. The average
age of Berlusconi's government is 52.48.
Other notable appointments to the new government include the
leader of the Northern League, Umberto Bossi, who as the new reform
minister is likely to be able to push his party's federalist agenda.
Ignazio La Russa from the post-Fascist National Alliance - which
merged with Berlusconi's People of Freedom party in the elections -
is the new defence minister, while another Northern League member,
Roberto Maroni, takes over as interior minister.
Berlusconi has pledged to hold the first 'operational meeting' of
the new cabinet in Naples, which has been in the grips of a rubbish
crisis since late December 2007.
The premier has made resolving the rubbish crisis in the southern
port city his first priority.
But before then, the government still needs to win confidence
votes in parliament's two houses - the upper Senate and the lower
Chamber of Deputies.
With Berlusconi and his centre-right allies enjoying a comfortable
majority in both houses, the process is expected to be completed by
the end of next week.
Berlusconi first served as prime minister in 1994-95, when his
government collapsed after nine months because of internal
differences.
He regained power in the April 2001 elections and remained in
office for five years, the longest term in post-World War II Italian
history.
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