With Mr Fini preparing to launch a new party and the Northern League, another party in the coalition, eager for an early election, the threat of a government collapse has become perpetual.
With a coalition government eager to present its policies as an extension of the academies programme championed by Tony Blair, this could well work in his favour.
But nationwide municipal elections are scheduled for October, with the presidential and legislative races to follow in 2002, and the government coalition is eager to offer voters something more than continued austerity.
Back on C-level that afternoon, a cast of thousands (a hundred-plus, anyway) was gathering for the first rehearsal of what Ms. Zambello calls the "Fourth of July/Thanksgiving" scene with chorus, dancers and extras, complete with a pint-size rainbow coalition of eager children, among them a boy named Troy and a girl named Cassandra.
In being so eager to show that "coalitions can work", they have shown instead that coalitions are for mugs like them.
The French still police their former colonies using military force and regularly are eager participants of U.S. coalitions to attack countries outside that category.
Indeed Mr Ecevit's coalition partners are eager to trip him up.
Some members of the opposition are not eager to rush into a coalition with the Communists, as other opposition groups have done in Eastern Europe.
Out of Project Wild Thing has emerged The Wild Network, a coalition of organisations eager to encourage children and parents into the great outdoors.
But as he enters talks with Kuwaiti leaders, Mr. Rumsfeld is aware that, publicly at least, they remain less than eager about joining a new coalition to oust Mr. Hussein.
Of course, should Saddam lash out at Israel, Labor would join an emergency government, but barring that, the prime minister will assemble a center-right coalition of the eager.
