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© APMr Renzi will spend the next few days seeking to fill key cabinet positions.
Matteo Renzi outlined an ambitious plan for Italy on Monday as he was appointed the country's new prime minister, vowing to urgently pursue far-reaching financial and political reforms in his first few months in office.

Mr Renzi was summoned to the Quirinale, the presidential palace, following the resignation of Enrico Letta on Friday and will spend the next few days seeking to form a coalition and fill key cabinet positions after facing rejections from several candidates at the weekend.

"For the legislature that we are proposing we need a few days to confirm the government," Mr Renzi, who at 39 would be the country's youngest-ever prime minister, said immediately after the president confirmed his position.

"But I assure you I will give this commitment all the energy I have."

The former premier was ousted in an internal party vote orchestrated by Mr Renzi who called for a "new phase" to push through economic and electoral reforms.

Provided his government is approved, as is expected, in a parliamentary confidence vote later this week, Mr Renzi will be Italy's third unelected prime minister in three years. He was named after the president held talks with leaders across the political spectrum at the weekend to decide on a new leader.

The Florence mayor, who is often dressed casually in jeans with his shirtsleeves rolled up, wore a dark suit for his meeting with the president and drove himself to the palace in a small white sedan.

Elected party secretary in a landslide last December, he is not a member of parliament and has no national political experience.

But the brash politician who models himself on former British prime minister Tony Blair is determined to push through what he calls a "revolution" in Italian politics.

Nicknamed the Rottamatore or Demolition Man for his desire to shake up the political establishment, he is already struggling to fill key cabinet positions after at least three candidates rejected his job offers.

Political horsetrading was expected to intensify as the New Centre Right Party (NCD) led by current deputy prime minister Angelino Alfano is demanding at least three cabinet posts and Mr Renzi will rely on the party for crucial support in the Senate.

Mr Alfano, who split from Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia party last year, has already warned his party will not tolerate any move to the Left and wants a policy pact with Mr Renzi in writing.

"We support the creation of the new government. If we say no to this government, it will not be born," Mr Alfano said Sunday.

Mr Renzi also faces a backlash within the PD as rebel MP Giuseppe Civati warned he may not endorse the prime minister-elect in a confidence vote expected in parliament later in the week.

Early on Monday the prime minister-elect met Luca Di Montezemolo, former chairman of Fiat, who was being flagged as a potential minister for economic development .

But Romano Prodi, the former prime minister, has reportedly rejected a cabinet post, as well as author Alessandro Baricco and Andrea Guerra, head of Luxottica, the world's largest eyewear company, who refused the key economic portfolio at the weekend.

The new Cabinet is expected to be sworn in Thursday or Friday and a confidence vote would then be put to the Parliament.

Financial markets have so far reacted favourably to the dramatic changes in the third largest economy in the eurozone, unlike the volatility when Silvio Berlusconi was forced to resign at the end of 2011 amid allegations of economic mismanagement and "bunga bunga" sex parties with showgirls.

A poll published in the Italian daily Corriere Della Sera on Monday showed that 64 per cent of Italians oppose the change of leadership but 52 per cent of those surveyed believe a Renzi government can push through the reforms that the country needs.