Constitutional change rejected

ROME -- Italians yesterday resoundingly rejected a proposal to overhaul Italy's constitution as voters rewarded the new government and delivered a setback to former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi two months after he lost power.

Results from all polling stations except those overseas showed 61.7 percent of the voters in a two-day, nationwide referendum turned down the plan to strengthen the prime minister's powers, give more autonomy to the regions, and cut the number of legislators.

The result was a victory for new Prime Minister Romano Prodi, who campaigned against the changes arguing they would shatter national unity, weaken the president, and cost billions of euros.

``This reinforces the [governing] coalition," Defense Minister Arturo Parisi told Sky Italia television.

The referendum was especially important to Berlusconi, whose future as opposition leader could now be in doubt after he narrowly lost April's elections to the center left. Oliviero Diliberto, head of the Italian Communists, called the results ``a clear defeat for Berlusconi."

Partial results showed heavy turnout across the country and a ``no" vote even in the north, where the center right's devolution lobby was strongest.

Nearly six hours after the polls closed, Berlusconi said he was ``saddened" by the result. He had called an emergency meeting with members of his center-right bloc, local news agencies added.

Berlusconi pushed the constitutional changes through parliament in a flurry of activity during his last months in power, saying they would end Italy's half-century of revolving-door governments.

The referendum was needed because the measure won only a narrow majority in parliament last November instead of the two-thirds support that would have triggered the changes.

``Constitutional reforms need the broadest possible support and not just that of the governing majority," Prodi said, announcing that his coalition would now seek cross-party agreement on both constitutional and electoral reforms.

While Prodi's center left fought the reforms that were put to vote this week, it might support a strengthening of the prime minister's powers and a reduction in the number of lawmakers.

The changes would have given Italy's 20 regions autonomy over health, schooling, and policing, a move critics said would mean better services for richer northern regions to the detriment of the poorer south.

Regional autonomy was a priority for the Northern League, a small, raucous member of the center-right bloc that has threatened to quit unless the referendum passed -- a move that would undercut Berlusconi's leadership.

Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of wartime dictator Benito Mussolini and leader of a splinter center-right party, said: ``The entire center right will have to take stock as one of its major planks has been rejected."

Franco Pavoncello, president of John Cabot University in Rome, said before the results that a defeat could be ``the beginning of the waning of Berlusconi's political career."