Rome, Feb 22 (IANS) After three days of consultations, Italy's center-left leader Matteo Renzi has formally accepted the position of prime minister and presented his cabinet list to President Giorgio Napolitano.
Renzi's left-right coalition government has 16 ministers, half of whom are women, Xinhua reported. The former government was made up of 21 ministers.
The only technical figure is chief economist of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Pier Carlo Padoan who has been named the economy minister, the most watched position to assuage concerns of international investors about Italy's troubled economy.
Three of Letta's ministers kept their posts, namely Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, the leader of the junior government partner New Centre Right (NCD), Minister of Infrastructure and Transport Maurizio Lupi and Minister of Health Beatrice Lorenzin.
The new government would be supported by the same political forces as Letta's with NCD and minor centrist parties in the majority, the anti-establishment Five-Star Movement (M5S) and the centre-right Forza Italia (FI) party of three-time premier Silvio Berlusconi in the opposition.
"I will do my best to gain the confidence of the president and of the millions of Italians who are awaiting for concrete answers from this government," Renzi told a news conference after talks with Napolitano.
"The cabinet has broad characteristics of novelty. The imprint of Renzi was evident in the many new names of people who became ministers for the first time," Napolitano told journalists.
Renzi said earlier this week that his government would start to work on constitutional reforms in February, including a new voting law and simplification of the political system, before switching to labour reforms in March, public-administration reforms in April and fiscal reforms in May.
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