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Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Italian Christian Democrat leader, Amintore Fanfani on Monday (14 October) bowed to intense political pressure and reluctantly accepted a mandate from President Giovanni Leone to try to form a new government.

Signor Fanfani accepted "with reservations", indicating that he would return the mandate to the President if he failed to patch together a coalition.

The summons to Signor Fanfani came 11 days after the fall of the former Centre-Left coalition and a week of consultations first by President Leone and then by Senate President Giovanni Spagnolli aimed at forming a new coalition.

The diminutive (5f 6 inch -- 1.68 metre) 66-year old Senator has headed four previous administrations -- the first when he was 45.

Most Italian politicians see Senator Fanfani as the man most qualified to resolve the present economic and political crises -- possibly the worst in Italy's recent history.

But Senator Fanfani's reservations were well justified. Nothing has basically changed to alter the quarrel that brought down the coalition government of Premier Mariano Rumor on 3 October.

Senator Fanfani told a press conference in Rome that he would start his mission with two days of preliminary consultations with Italy's main political leaders. He said he could give no guarantees that he could reconcile the view of the Christian Democrats with their main coalition partners, the Socialists and the Social Democrats.