Now he has stepped aside, accused of corruption - much as Fernando Collor, another economic liberaliser, had to step aside before being driven out of office in Brazil last year.

Mr. Prodi, a former president of the European Commission, has pushed through measures to liberalize the Italian economy and has promoted himself as a pro-European liberalizer.

"He offers the image of a liberalizer, perhaps enough to keep Syria's Sunni majority from exploding after the passing of the reviled Hafez, but not one who will go too far.

Some legislators wondered if Mr. Shevardnadze might return to his native Georgia, where as Communist Party chief he had a reputation as a ruthless fighter of corruption and an early economic liberalizer.

Despite being elected after a populist, anti-neoliberal campaign during which he described the IMF as "a neutron bomb that killed people, but left buildings standing" and said that World Bank economists were "genocide workers in the pay of economic totalitarianism", he had become a closet liberalizer and globalizer.