The new polls show the centre-left slightly ahead, although still within the statistical margin for error.The centre-right has also made a number of gaffes. Although opinion polls cannot be published in the last three weeks, a clutch of private surveys suggest that the initiative seized by Mr Berlusconi in the early stages of the campaign has now ebbed and that support is swinging in the other direction. Everything, from their proposals to bring employment to this depressed corner of Italy to their jibes at the centre-right led by Silvio Berlusconi and Gianfranco Fini, met with cheers and ecstatic banner-waving.”As the campaign goes on, we are getting stronger and they are getting weaker. They want to divide Italy while we will work to unite it,” boomed Mr Veltroni. “At the next G7 meeting there will be two new faces, Tony Blair and Romano Prodi.”The rally was an important morale-booster since the centre-left (known by the name of its symbol, the Olive Tree) has precious few strongholds in the Italian South and will be relying on the reputation of men like Mr Bassolino to win over its conservative and traditionalist electorate.There have been other reasons to be cheerful in the past few days. With the setting sun glowing through the palms and plane trees of the municipal park, the coalition’s leaders – Romano Prodi, his deputy Walter Veltroni and the wildly popular mayor of Naples, Antonio Bassolino – were greeted with passion and optimism by an adoring crowd and, for the first time in this bruising campaign, actually looked and sounded like they were on their way to victory.
Mr Bassolino, who has restored badly needed confidence to the chaos of Naples in the past two years, was treated like a rock star; and even Mr Prodi, not the most inspiring of public speakers, was received with thunderous applause. Castellammare della Stabia – If there was anywhere for Italy’s centre-left coalition to feel optimistic in the final week of general election campaigning, it was surely here in this down-at-heel industrial town in the Bay of Naples, at a rousing outdoor rally this past weekend.

Hostility is more likely at a lower level, and between Muslims and Croats, who will not be separated cleanly by the demarcation lines in the Dayton agreement.. Nor, they believe, would there be any value in transferring the Nato flag to that of the Western European Union (WEU).However, Nato has had remarkable success so far. And, for the first time in 30 years, the French now work in harmony with the Atlantic alliance.Nato is also a good guarantee of continued US involvement in non-direct military roles, such as transport, medical aid, air cover and intelligence.A Nato force of 20,000 to 25,0000 troops, without US troops on the ground, therefore looks a feasible option.Britain and France could provide such a force alone, if necessary, to maintain the success which Nato’s reputation and organisation has achieved, sources said.Once the warring factions are separated and their heavy weapons destroyed or corralled, I-For will have fulfilled the main part of its mission and can be diverted to other tasks, including reconstruction and securing and investigating the sites of alleged atrocities.If reconstruction goes according to plan, the main requirement by December will be for a large civilian construction effort and assistance with policing and law and order.Separated by a four-kilometre wide zone, and with their heavy weapons in storage, the Bosnian Serb and Bosnian government forces will find it difficult to menace each other. Dayton has secured a ceasefire which is now in its sixth month. I believe we are far more likely to have a durable peace in Bosnia if there is a military presence there for another 12 months.”The practised organisation of Nato has proved highly successful in establishing an unchallenged authority in Bosnia, respected by the Bosnian government,Croats and Serbs.The inchoate organisation of the civilian reconstruction effort, under the “high representative”, Carl Bildt, has not, according to observers. Therefore, to forgo the authority and efficiency of Nato and hand over to a disparate civilian organisation would be foolhardy.While a renewed UN presence to co-ordinate any remaining military components with civilian aid organisations cannot be ruled out, experts consider it unlikely.

They have so far rejected the idea, which has been widely mooted, of European states maintaining a military presence after a US withdrawal following the US presidential election.When I-For was deployed the idea was to make a spectacular demonstration of joint force, and to stick together for a year before withdrawing – a policy which, so far, has seemed to work.Some commentators believe the contributor nations are sticking to that line in order to maintain respect from the former warring factions.But Michael Williams, a former UN director of information in Zagreb who is now with the International Institute for Strategic Studies, yesterday said “it is imperative there be some continuing military presence, preferably under the Nato umbrella, post-December. If the 60,000 mainly Nato troops and tens of thousands of vehicles are to be withdrawn by the end of December, they will have to start withdrawing in August.Michael Portillo, the British Secretary of State for Defence, and his advisers still favour the “in together, stay together out together” policy which drove the deployment of I-For. The official British and US position that everyone must leave when the 20,000-strong US component of I-For departs is “untenable”, according to one expert. While any discussion of the “post I-For” options and “Day 366″ is still regarded as heresy in official circles, it is looking increasingly likely that a smaller European Nato force, led by Britain and France, will stay.
A decision on the exact nature of foreign involvement in Bosnia after I-For’s mission ends will need to be made soon, probably at the Peace Implementation Review Conference in Rome in June.The Nato Secretary-General, Javier Solana, said in February that there would be no public discussion of the post-I-For question until 18 April, the deadline for withdrawal of all the former warring factions’ heavy weapons. A continued role for Nato in Bosnia after the 60,000-strong peace implementation force (I-For) is due to leave after its year-long mandate ends in mid- December is looking increasingly likely. But President Clinton, engaged in a round-the-world tour, has shown no sign of willingness to dispatch Mr Christopher or another senior official to the region.The White House spokesman, Mike McCurry, said: “Obviously our goal is to see what steps can be taken now to restore calm to the border and to minimise the violence.” Washington blames Hizbollah for the renewed fighting.. There’s nothing in it”.The French intervention received a similarly discouraging response in Israel itself.Asked by journalists what his conditions might be to end the five-day rocket and artillery bombardment of Lebanon, the Israeli Prime Minister, Shimon Peres, declared: “It is too early to negotiate.”Some French commentators also criticised their government’s decision to go it alone.The Liberation newspaper said that it was prompted not by any genuine hope of doing good, but by embarrassment that Israel – a close ally of France – had launched the bombardment one week after President Jacques Chirac had proclaimed his support for the sovereignty and independence of Lebanon, a former French protectorate.The US response to the fighting remains low-key, with the Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, telephoning his Syrian counterpart, Farouq al-Sharaa, the Israeli Foreign Minister, Ehud Barak, and Lebanese leaders.

The statement expressed “concern” at the “growing humanitarian problems” of the tens of thousands of civilians forced to flee. The Director of Middle East Affairs at the Foreign Office, John Shepherd, flew to Beirut for talks yesterday.There was thinly disguised irritation in EU capitals yesterday after France began an apparently doomed attempt to broker a ceasefire single- handedly by dispatching its Foreign Minister, Herve de Charette, to Israel, Lebanon and Syria.Senior foreign ministry officials from the 15 EU countries were meeting in Brussels yesterday to try to prepare some kind of common statement or initiative for a meeting of European foreign ministers in Luxembourg next week.One EU diplomat told Reuters that the unilateral French action would “go down like a lead balloon, not because of any jealousies but because the French move is hollow. Michael Portillo, the Defence Secretary, yesterday gave his backing to Israel’s air and artillery blitz in Lebanon as European governments struggled to find a common response to the bloodshed. Mr Portillo, who began a long-scheduled visit to Israel yesterday, placed the entire blame for the civilian exodus from southern Lebanon on Hizbollah, which, he said, had fired its rockets at northern Israel from the heart of civilian areas.
“It is the right of every country to have security and defend herself…” Mr Portillo said. “I don’t believe that Israel wishes to kill any civilians and for that reason civilians have been withdrawing for their own security.”We rely upon Israel to gauge the extent of her reaction and we know that it is Israel’s intention to resume the peace process when she can.”However, a more cautious statement from the Foreign Office contrasted, in tone if not in substance, with Mr Portillo’s remarks and called on both sides to “break the cycle of violence”.