Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said on Friday he would not run for office again when his term ends in 2011, adding that the country needed new political leaders.
Prodi's centre-left coalition last year won a five-year term in Italy's closest election since the end of World War Two.
"It is my wish that at the end of this legislature my work will have been completed, because Italy needs new leaders," Prodi said at a conference of the Daisy party, which is part of his coalition.
Prodi, who turns 68 in August, did not say whether he would run again if his term, as many analysts predict, ended early.
Prodi only has a razor-thin parliamentary majority and has been struggling to hold together his fractious coalition, which ranges from moderate Roman Catholics to communists.
