ITALY: Just one month before Italy's general election, the government record of centre-right prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has come in for unprecedented criticism from four of the most authoritative voices in the land.
Fiat president Luca Cordero di Montezemolo and newly- appointed governor of the Bank of Italy Mario Draghi have both decried the current zero growth rate of the Italian economy.
Making his most important public speech since taking over from Antonio Fazio at the Bank of Italy last December, Mr Draghi last weekend warned that Europe's fourth-largest economy had "run aground", adding: "Gross domestic product did not grow [ last year], our products lost even more world market share and the budget deficit increased."
Mr Montezemolo, who is also head of Confindustria, the Italian Confederation of Industry, echoed those remarks in an interview with financial daily Il Sole 24 Ore two days later, saying: "Italy has simply stopped dead. This is a very difficult moment, we have zero growth rate, we're losing our quota of international markets, we have huge running costs, poor quality services and public and private investment is at an all-time low."
An even more emphatic vote of no confidence in Mr Berlusconi was registered by both the Milan daily Corriere Della Sera and novelist Umberto Eco.
On Wednesday, in a front-page editorial, Corriere Della Sera called on its readers to vote Mr Berlusconi out of office, replacing him with the centre-left alliance led by former European Commission president Romano Prodi.
The paper said Mr Berlusconi's five-year term of office had been "disappointing" in that, rather than solve the serious socio-economic problems facing the country, Mr Berlusconi chose to devote much time to resolving both his own judicial problems and the inherent tensions within his centre-right coalition.
In contrast, argues the paper, Mr Prodi has all the necessary attributes "to govern well".
Novelist Eco, author of In The Name Of The Rose, was even more outspoken, calling the forthcoming election "a dramatic moment" and arguing that in order to save "democratic institutions" it is necessary to vote Mr Berlusconi out of office.
"From 2001 through to today, Italy has sunk frighteningly low with regard to respect for both the laws of the land and the constitution, as well as with regard to its economic situation and international prestige," said Eco. "If we were to have another five years of centre-right government, the decline of our country could become unstoppable and we might never recover."
At the end of a difficult week, Mr Berlusconi met with another apparent setback when he was forced to agree to terms set by Mr Prodi for two keenly anticipated televised debates. For weeks Mr Prodi had said he would not engage in a "head-to-head" with Mr Berlusconi if the prime minister insisted on holding a final campaign press conference after the debate.
This week Mr Berlusconi appeared to accept Mr Prodi's terms, saying he would not hold the press conference, and adding: "I want to see now if Prodi will continue to keep running away from me."
Mr Berlusconi's decision would suggest he believes he will win any such debate. Since his dramatic entry into Italian politics in 1994, media tycoon Berlusconi has been a spectacularly effective campaigner, largely focusing on an aggressive, populist use of his own three nationwide commercial channels.
No date has yet been fixed for either of the debates, but the first could be held next week.
The most recent opinion polls claim that the centre-left is ahead of the centre-right by 4 to 5 per cent. Italians go to the polls on April 9th and 10th.